>  APR  14  1905   *] 


BS  '2A15  .A2  T4  v. 3 

Teachings  of  Jesus 

concerning  the  . . 


THE  TEACHINGS  OF  JESUS 
Edited  by  JOHN  H.  KERR,  D.  D. 


THE   TEACHING   OF   JESUS 

CONCERNING 

GOD  THE  FATHER 


Archibald  Thomas  Robertson,  D.  D. 


v 

THE  TEACHINGS  OF  JESUS 

CONCERNING 

HIS  OWN  MISSION.         Frank  H.  Foster.      Ready. 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AND  THE  CHURCH. 
Geerhardus  Vos.        Ready. 
GOD  THE  FATHER 

Archibald  Thomas  Robertson.  " 

HIS  OWN  PERSON In  preparation. 

THE  SCRIPTURES 

CHRISTIAN  CONDUCT 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

THE  FAMILY 

THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE 

A    Series  of  volumes    on  the    "Teachings  of    Jesus" 
by  eminent  writers  and  divines. 

Cloth  bound.     i2mo.     Price  75  cts.  each  postpaid. 

AMERICAN  TEACT  SOCIETY. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS 


CONCERNING 


GOD    THE  FATHER 


By, 
Archibald  Thomas  Robertson,  D.  D. 


AMERICAN   TRACT    SOCIETY 

150  NASSAU  STREET 
NEW   YORK 


Copyright,  igo4, 
By  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY 


TO    MY     FATHER 

WHOSE    LOVE    IS 

KIN    TO    THAT    OF    GOD    THE    FATHER. 


PREFACE 


rHE  object  of  this  volume  is  to  tell 
in  straightforward  manner  the 
message  of  Jesus  concerning  God 
the  Father.  The  book  is  written  after 
much  study  of  what  men  have  written 
concerning  God  and  in  sympathy  with 
all  the  truth  that  modern  scholarship  has 
to  offer  on  this  great  theme.  But  in  har- 
mony with  the  plan  of  the  series  no 
references  to  the  literature  of  the  subject 
cumber  the  pages.  The  bulk  of  the  book 
is  the  result  of  direct  exegesis  of  the 
words  of  Jesus.  We  come  reverently 
with  Philip  to  Jesus  and  say:  **  Lord, 
show  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us." 
A.  T.  Robertson. 
Louisville,  Ky. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  The   Importance    of    a   Knowl- 
edge OF  God.     Modern  Ideas 

ABOUT  God i 

II.  The  Old  Testament  Idea  of 
God  THE  Basis  of  Jesus'  Teach- 
ing         14 

III.  Jesus  the   Revealer  of   God  the 

Father  to  Men 24 

IV.  The  Relation  of  the  Father  to 

THE  Son 43 

V.  The  Relation  of  the  Father  to 

THE  Holy  Spirit 70 

VI.  The    Relation    of    God   to   His 

World 85 

VII.  The    Relation  of    God    to  the 

Unsaved 100 

VIII.  The    Relation    of    God   to    Be- 
lievers  117 

vii 


viii  Contents 

PAGE 

IX.  Jesus'  Conception  of  God  Com- 
pared    WITH     THE    Apostolic 

Teaching 138 

X.  Jesus'    Conception    of    God    the 

Ruling  Idea  of  Theology.     .      155 

XI,  Summary 167 

Indices 171 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Importance  of  a  Kjtowledge  of 
God.     Modern  Ideas  about  God. 

"  None  is  good  save  one,  even  God  "  (Mark  x.  i8). 

rHE  picture  of  a  world  without 
God  is  horrible  to  contemplate. 
A  world  without  God  in  fact 
would  be  either  chaos  or  death.  An 
orderly  world  is  not  possible  apart  from 
mind  and  a  mind  commensurate  with  so 
vast  a  problem.  To  admit  that  mind  is 
to  admit  God.  But  the  world  can  be 
without  God  even  if  God  exists.  Practi- 
cally this  state  is   nearly  as  bad   as  the 


2  God  the  Father 

other,  though  not  quite,  for  even  those 
who  have  **  no  hope  "  and  are  **  without 
God  in  the  world  "  (Eph.  ii.  12)  are  near 
God  if  they  only  knew  it,  for  *'  he  is  not 
far  from  each  one  of  us  "  (Acts  xvii.  27). 

Hope  for  a  Godless  World 

For  if  God  exists,  he  can  be  found. 
Though  our  search  for  him  be  not  suc- 
cessful as  we  grope  in  the  dark,  if  haply 
we  may  feel  after  him  and  find  him,  still 
we  need  not  despair.  Some  point  of 
contact  may  be  found  between  us  and 
God  that  may,  when  discovered,  open 
the  door  of  heaven,  as  Helen  Keller  was 
led  by  touch  to  God.  But  atheism  is 
essentially  pessimistic  and  so  Paul  cor- 
rectly said  that  those  who  have  not  God 
have  no  hope.  The  reflex  influence  of 
one's  belief  in  God  cannot  be  overesti- 
mated. What  one  thinks  about  God 
determines  his  theology,  his  philosophy, 
his  ethical  views,  his  conduct.  The 
ground  of  hope  for  a  world  without  God 


Modern  Ideas  about  God       3 

is  that  the  Father  seeks  to  manifest  him- 
self to  men.  This  is  the  positive  word 
that  Christ  has  for  men,  this  is  the  main- 
spring in  Christian  missions,  this  is  the 
crown  of  human  destiny,  to  be  found  of 
God. 

"Why  the  'World  was  Without  a  Knowl- 
edge of  God 

If  the  evolutionary  view  of  the  world's 
origin  be  correct,  it  does  not  follow  that 
originally  men  did  not  have  adequate 
knowledge  of  God.  Certainly  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  original  knowledge  of  God 
and  many  scientists  find  much  to  confirm 
it.  In  the  most  primitive  and  savage  of 
present  peoples  some  knowledge  of  a 
superior  being  is  preserved  with  hints  of 
better  knowledge  in  other  days.  Names 
of  God  occur  in  all  parts  of  the  earth  and 
memory  of  better  days  exists.  It  is  true 
that,  while  Christianity  is  God  seeking 
man,  heathenism  is  man  seeking  God, — 
true  in  a  sense  only,  however.     Heathen- 


4  God  the  Father 

ism  is  much  more  a  distinct  departure 
from  God  than  it  is  a  groping  after  the 
unknown  God  on  the  part  of  a  few. 
Certainly  the  fall  of  man  after  reaching 
the  image  of  God  is  possible.  We  wit- 
ness human  degradation  in  lives  around 
us.  Progress  in  arts  and  sciences  does 
not  measure  progress  in  goodness.  There 
is  a  strange  persistence,  if  not  increase,  of 
evil  through  the  centuries  where  the  re- 
straint of  fear  of  God  does  not  abide. 
The  facts  of  human  nature  do  not  justify 
us  in  saying  that  sin  is  merely  the  rem- 
nant of  the  animal  nature  brought  on 
from  our  animal  ancestry.  Sin  is  far 
more  of  the  spirit  than  of  the  flesh.  It 
is  an  easy  way  of  shirking  responsibility 
for  wrongdoing  to  charge  it  to  our  ani- 
mal nature.  Evolution  as  an  agent  fails 
to  explain  the  origin  of  man.  Evolution 
as  God 's  method  of  working  can  offer  an 
adequate  explanation  of  man's  history. 

The  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  and 
so  of  man's  alienation  from  God  is  the 


Modern  Ideas  about  God       5 

most  difficult  in  theology,  so  difficult  in 
fact  that  some  who  believe  in  God  deny 
the  existence  of  sin.  But  this  again  is  to 
win  serenity  of  spirit  at  the  cost  of  the 
evidence  of  the  senses.  We  are  helpless 
to  speak  a  sure  word  on  this  subject  if  we 
decline  to  admit  the  existence  of  Satan 
who  threw  man  down  from  his  pedestal 
and  won  men  away  from  the  worship  of 
God.  The  chief  end  of  man  is  to  know 
God  and  to  be  like  him.  It  is  ruin 
enough  to  satisfy  any  devil  if  he  could 
thwart  the  true  destiny  of  men.  The 
three  ultimate  realities  are  God,  self,  the 
world  ;  and  a  recent  writer  has  well  said 
that  science  works  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  world,  philosophy  from  that  of 
self,  and  theology  from  that  of  God. 
Each  of  these  great  methods  has  its  place 
and  value,  but  surely  the  supreme  value 
belongs  to  theology  if  it  can  really  gain 
the  standpoint  of  God.  To  see  man  as 
God  sees  him  would  be  theology  indeed, 
and  not  philosophy  under  the  garb  of 


6  God  the  Father 

theology.  As  God  looks  upon  man  and 
man's  sin,  what  does  he  see  ?  He  sees 
the  truth  and  all  the  truth.  **  Can  man 
by  searching  find  out  God  ?" 

What  the  'World  now  Thinks  about  God 

One  of  the  worst  heretics  is  the  man 
who  is  afraid  that  his  views  may  be  wrong 
and  is  afraid  to  investigate  the  facts. 
Cowardice  before  facts  is  pitiable.  Re- 
pression of  the  intellect  as  to  religious 
problems  has  its  necessary  reaction  in 
scepticism.  The  victory  for  individual 
opinion  won  by  Luther  against  the  tyr- 
anny of  Roman  Catholic  stifling  of  the 
mind  was  bound  to  lead  to  defiant  atheism. 
The  pendulum  will  swing  its  course. 
But  better  this  than  the  blight  of  medi- 
aeval authority  over  the  human  mind,  for 
the  facts  of  the  universe  are  open  to  all. 
The  atheist  has  had  his  say  and  he  speaks 
largely  to  an  unsympathetic  audience  at 
present.  The  blatant  infidel  has  a  coterie 
of  followers  here  and  there  among  the 


Modern  Ideas  about  God       7 

openly  wicked,  but  not  among  the  real 
men  of  culture.  Materialism  is  no  longer 
a  word  with  which  to  frighten  the  fol- 
lowers of  God.  Haeckel  has  only  a  small 
following  among  true  scientists.  Science 
has  won  its  place  against  an  intolerant 
theology  and  has  also  realized  its  helpless- 
ness to  explain  the  universe  without  God. 
Science  cannot  tell  what  **  life  "  is  nor 
consciousness  nor  ethics.  The  retreat 
to  agnosticism  is  no  longer  formidable. 
Even  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  cannot  revive  it. 
This  essentially  apologetic  position  has 
been  obliged  to  concede  a  Force  behind 
the  world  of  matter,  grudgingly  admit- 
ting the  failure  of  materialism  though 
unwilling  to  affirm  the  personality  of  this 
Force.  But  the  hesitation  of  Spencer  is 
passing  into  the  positive  affirmation  of 
Lord  Kelvin,  who  openly  asserts  that  sci- 
ence has  a  definite  message  in  behalf  of 
the  existence  of  God.  The  best  scientific 
and  religious  spirit  of  our  time  is  seeking 
a  higher  unity  in  the  realm  of  spirit  in 


8  God  the  Father 

the  common  acknowledgment  of  God  as 
Creator  and  Lord  of  all.  The  subtle  pan- 
theism of  Spinoza  reappears  in  the  still 
popular  monism.  But  one  cannot  think 
that  this  is  the  ultimate  philosophy  of  man 
nor  the  true  explanation  of  the  world  as 
it  is,  any  more  than  the  idealism  of 
Hegel.  Our  time  has  passed  from  the 
cold  deism  of  the  eighteenth  century 
with  its  absentee  God. 

The  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  uni- 
verse holds  the  field  once  more.  The 
doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God  is  more 
clearly  perceived  in  our  day  than  ever, 
but  needs  to  be  reinforced  by  the  parallel 
truth  of  the  transcendence  of  God.  In 
a  word  the  modern  mind  is  open  to  faith 
in  God.  Evolution,  instead  of  ruling  God 
out  of  the  world,  has  restored  him  to  his 
true  place  in  the  minds  of  scientific  men. 
The  return  of  George  J.  Romanes  and 
John  Fiske  to  belief  in  a  personal  God 
is  symptomatic  of  the  age.  The  modern 
world  is  not  so  patient  with  mediaeval  the- 


Modern  Ideas  about  God       9 

ological  distinctions,  but  is  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God.  The  historic  Christ  fills  the 
horizon  of  modern  scholarship  and  that 
scholarship  is  reacting  to  the  admission 
that  he  is  the  eternal  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God.  The  counter  movement  of  Ritsch- 
lianism  is  impatient  with  the  historic 
realities  and  cares  most  for  the  ideas 
gathered  up  into  Christianity.  The  great 
controversy  of  our  time  is  taking  shape 
around  the  Person  of  Christ,  whether  in 
truth  he  were  in  fact  and  essence  the  Son 
of  God,  God  in  nature,  or  merely  so  ac- 
cepted by  those  who  elevated  him  by 
faith  to  the  position  of  deity.  The  out- 
come cannot  be  doubted,  but  meanwhile 
many  will  be  led  into  the  bog  of  Ritsch- 
lianism,  the  most  subtle  apologetic  of  all 
time  for  holding  on  to  the  form  and  sur- 
rendering the  substance  of  Christianity. 
The  Holy  Spirit  in  his  work  in  the  pres- 
ent age  is  apprehended  in  a  new  and  vital 
sense.     Judaism  itself  accents  still  the  fact 


lo  God  the  Father 

of  God  and  that  much  of  truth  even  Mo- 
hammedanism proclaims.  In  fact  God 
is  the  central  fact  of  human  thinking, 
and  this  fact  was  never  more  clearly 
recognized  than  novs^.  The  theologies 
of  all  time  are  two — one  with  God  as  the 
center,  the  other  with  man  as  the  center. 
Even  now  with  all  the  new  interest  in 
man  the  God-centered  theology  is  dom- 
inant. Some  systems  still  betray  a  certain 
**  horror  dei,''  but  the  modern  mind  as  a 
whole  uncovers  itself  before  the  idea  of 
God. 

Has  God  a  Clear  Word  about  Himself 

It  is  freely  granted  that  God  cannot  be 
defined.  The  saying  is  eminently  true  : 
'*  Le  Dieu  defini  est  le  dieu  fini."  The 
infinite  God  cannot  be  grasped  by  the 
human  mind  either  by  inquiry  or  by  rev- 
elation. It  is  impossible  for  God  fully 
to  manifest  himself  to  men,  but  this  fact 
does  not  mean  that  God  cannot  at  all  re- 
veal himself  to  some  men.     Plato  went 


Modern  Ideas  about  God     1 1 

as  far  as  the  unaided  human  intellect  can 
go  in  its  speculation  about  God,  but  he 
gave  up  and  hoped  for  more  light.  '*  We 
will  wait,"  said  he,  **for  one,  be  it  God 
or  God-inspired  man,  to  teach  us  our  re- 
ligious duties  and  to  take  away  the  dark- 
ness from  our  eyes."  If  evolution  stops 
short  of  opening  men's  eyes  to  God,  can 
revelation  sufficiently  remove  scales  from 
the  eyes  of  the  heart  for  God  to  be  seen  ? 
Our  day  has  an  answer  that  steadies  many 
hearts  when  it  points  and  appeals  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  individual  Christian 
as  a  sure  anchor  in  a  time  of  cold  criti- 
cism and  harassing  doubts  about  the  Bible 
itself.  There  is  force  in  this  appeal  that 
God  shows  himself  to  the  humble  heart 
that  seeks  him  in  trust.  And  yet  every- 
thing must  not  be  made  to  rest  on  the  ex- 
perimental argument,  for  the  Moham- 
medan and  the  Buddhist  may  make  a 
similar  appeal.  We  still  need  the  appeal 
to  the  life  as  shown  in  the  outward  ex- 
pression of  the  inward  experience.     We 


12  God  the  Father 

still  need  the  argument  from  design  in 
nature,  now  greatly  reinforced  by  evolu- 
tion. We  still  need  the  Word  of  God, 
the  Scriptures,  historical  and  human,  col- 
ored by  time  and  circumstance,  and  yet 
speaking  a  new  and  growing  and  lumi- 
nous and  illuminating  message  from  God 
himself  about  himself. 

God  reveals  himself  not  all  at  once, 
but  slowly,  now  one  attribute,  now  an- 
other, the  God  of  history  and  God  in  his- 
tory. Even  in  Homer  Zeus  is  called 
pater  (father)  and  Jupiter  among  the  Ro- 
mans is  the  same  word  and  idea.  But 
God  the  Father  was  lost  in  an  Olympus 
of  contending  gods  and  goddesses.  If 
God  the  Father  was  to  be  known  by  men, 
there  was  need  of  a  clear  word  of  reas- 
surance from  him.  The  distinctive  mes- 
sage of  Christianity  is  just  at  this  point. 
It  claims  that  Jesus  as  God  is  able  to  re- 
veal God  to  men  as  never  before  known. 
It  is  not  enough  to  listen  to  the  voice  of 
nature  that  in  silent  grandeur  points  us  to 


Modern  Ideas  about  God      13 

God.  It  is  not  enough  to  hearken  to  the 
heaven-born  aspirations  that  cry  out  after 
God  nor  the  lofty  speculations  of  the 
reason  about  God.  Better  than  these  is 
the  sure  word  of  prophecy  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, a  lamp  shining  in  a  dark  place.  But 
best  of  all  is  Jesus  Christ  himself  who 
claims  to  bring  God  to  men.  He  comes 
with  the  approval  of  the  Father  himself  : 
**  This  is  my  beloved  son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased  ;  hear  ye  him  "  (Matthew 
xvii.  5).  What  has  the  Son  to  say  about 
the  Father  ?  We  would  see  Jesus  for  his 
own  sake,  but  for  more,  wonderful  as 
that  is.  He  bears  a  message  from  the 
Father  and  is  the  image  of  the  Father. 
In  the  Son  then  we  may  study  the  Father 
with  reverence  and  fear.  In  this  book 
we  shall  ''hear  "  the  Son  on  this  greatest 
of  all  themes,  about  his  Father  and  our 
Father. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Old  Testament  Idea  of  God  the 
Basis  of  Jesus   Teaching. 

"  Ye  search  the  Scriptures  because  ye  think  that  in  them 
ye  have  eternal  Ufe  ;  and  these  are  they  which  bear  witness 
of  me  "     (John  v.  39). 

JESUS    does   not  set   forth    a   new 
divinity.     He  was  not  open  to  the 
specious  charge  laid  against  Soc- 
rates. 

The  Attitude  of  Jesus  toward  the  Old 
Testament 

On  this  point  as  elsewhere  the  Master 
rested  his  teaching  concerning  God  the 
14 


Basis  of  Jesus    Teaching      15 

Father  on  the  Old  Testament  revelation. 
He  does  not  hesitate  to  appeal  to  the 
Old  Testament  for  a  summary  of  duty  to 
God  and  man  under  two  commandments. 
*'  The  first  is,  *  Hear,  O  Israel ;  The  Lord 
our  God,  the  Lord  is  one ;  and  thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all 
thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength.' 
The  second  is  this,  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself.'  There  is  none 
other  commandment  greater  than  these  " 
(Mark  xii.  29-31).  In  fact  Jesus  often 
chided  the  teachers  of  the  time  with  ig- 
norance of  the  Scriptures  which  they 
professed  to  teach  (John  v.  39),  with 
ignorance  of  *'the  power  of  God  "  also 
(Matthew  xxii.  29),  and  in  particular  with 
ignorance  of  the  relation  between  the 
Messiah  as  the  son  of  David  and  the 
Father  (Matthew  xxii.  42-45).  So  it  is 
not  a  new  God,  but  new  light  on 
the  God  of  Israel  that  Jesus  comes  to 
present.     It  is  just  because  he  has  a  fresh 


1 6  God  the  Father 

and  helpful  message,  a  necessary  word, 
about  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament 
that  he  speaks  at  all.  '*  I  came  out  from 
the  Father  and  am  come  into  the  world  " 
(John  xvi.  28).  **  O  righteous  Father, 
the  world  knew  thee  not,  but  I  knew 
thee  ;  and  these  knew  that  thou  didst 
send  me  ;  and  I  made  known  unto  them 
thy  name,  and  will  make  it  known " 
(John  xvii.  25  f.).  Jesus  here  states  the 
high  purpose  of  his  coming  to  earth,  to 
manifest  to  men  anew  the  God  already 
known  in  part  and,  alas,  forgotten  in  fact. 

The  Progressive  Character  of  Old  Testa- 
ment Teaching  about  God 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  God 
would  manifest  himself  fully  at  first. 
The  Old  Testament  purports  to  be  a 
faithful  record  of  God's  dealing  with  the 
race  through  a  chosen  people  in  getting 
them  ready  for  the  coming  of  his  Son, 
the  Messiah,  who  was  to  bring  salvation 
to  the  lost.     This  view  is  here  accepted 


Basis  of  Jesus'  Teaching      17 

as  against  the  theory  which  makes  the 
Old  Testament  merely  a  retrospect  on  the 
part  of  dreamers  and  idealists  of  Israel 
who  wished  to  incite  the  people  to  better 
things  by  idealized  and  even  fictitious 
pictures  of  the  past  that  would  flatter  the 
nation's  vanity  and  stimulate  their  hope. 
The  acknowledgment  that  God  had  a 
definite,  consistent  and  permanent  pur- 
pose in  this  revelation  does  not  preclude 
the  freest  and  the  fullest  historical  devel- 
opment. But  the  initiative  and  the 
control  are  placed  with  God  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  representation.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  integrity  and  value  of  the 
Old  Testament  be  preserved ;  only  thus 
can  any  really  adequate  explanation  of 
the  facts  of  Israelitish  history  be  offered. 
Those  who  follow  the  other  line  of  ex- 
planation do  not  hesitate  to  disregard  the 
Old  Testament  facts  that  are  inconsistent 
with  the  theory  assumed  to  be  true,  a 
favorite  method  with  dogmatic  theolo- 
gians of  all  shades  of  belief.     If  we  may 


1 8  God  the  Father 

rearrange  and  set  aside  the  facts  in  Israel- 
itish  history,  we  are  free  to  adopt  any 
theory  that  we  please.  It  is  time  to 
speak  a  good  word  for  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, for  it  will  survive  the  present 
storm.  Jesus  did  not  hesitate  to  use  and 
appeal  to  the  Old  Testament.  It  seems 
needless  to  say  that  there  is  no  polytheism 
in  the  Old  Testament  teaching,  though 
much  of  it  is  found  in  the  practice  of 
the  people.  The  Israelites  are  not  alone 
in  history  as  examples  of  those  who  knew 
and  did  not.  The  great  lesson  of  Israel- 
itish  history  is  the  lesson  of  monotheism. 
When  they  would  not  listen  to  prophetic 
teaching,  they  were  turned  over  to  the 
Assyrian,  Babylonian  and  Persian  rule. 
The  exile  burned  the  lesson  into  their 
very  blood. 

'What  is  the  Old  Testament  Teaching  about 
God  the  Father 

The  God  of  Israel  becomes  the  God 
of  the  nations  under  prophetic  teaching. 


Basis  of  Jestts    Teachhig      19 

The  dominant  notes  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment are  the  reality,  the  singleness,  the 
power,  the  glory,  the  jealous  love  of 
God.  Almost  every  act  is  represented 
as  done  in  reference  to  God.  The  Old 
Testament  saint  walked  *' before  God," 
"with  God."  He  sinned  **  against 
God,"  "  against  the  Lord."  In  history, 
prophecy,  and  psalm  **  the  eternal  God," 
"the  most  high  God,"  "the  God  of 
heaven,"  "  the  holy  God,"  "  the  God  of 
hosts,"  "the  Lord  God  of  hosts,"  "the 
Lord  of  hosts,"  "the  mighty  God," 
"  the  Lord  God  of  the  fathers  "  is  pre- 
sented with  terrible  directness  and  awe- 
inspiring  vividness.  The  supremacy  and 
glory  of  God  and  the  weakness  of  man 
stand  out  strongly  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Not  often  is  God  called  "  Father  "  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  yet  the  fact  and 
the  idea  are  both  present.  In  Jeremiah 
xxxi.  9,  Jehovah  says :  "  For  I  am  a 
father  to  Israel,  and  Ephraim  is  my  first- 
born."    Likewise  in  Hosea  xi.  1,  Israel 


20  God  the  Father 

is  called  '*my  son"  by  Jehovah.  All 
this  is  in  the  narrow  sense  of  Father 
clearly  as  maintaining  a  peculiar  relation 
to  the  people  of  his  choice.  In  Malachi 
ii.  10,  we  read  :  "  Have  we  not  all  one 
Father  ?  Hath  not  our  God  created  us  ?  " 
Here  the  wider  sense  of  **  Father "  is 
apparently  applied  to  God,  not  merely  as 
spiritual  father  of  a  peculiar  people,  but 
as  creator  of  all  men.  However  it  is 
possible  that  even  here  the  covenant  idea 
dominates.  In  the  Psalms  we  meet  with 
the  character  of  God  as  Father.  So 
Psalm  Ixviii.  5  :  **  A  father  of  the  father- 
less, and  a  judge  of  widows,  is  God  in 
his  holy  habitation."  In  Psalm  ciii. 
13  we  read  :  **  Like  as  a  father  pitieth 
his  children,  so  Jehovah  pitieth  them  that 
fear  him."  Clearly  then  the  Old  Testa- 
ment has  the  basis  for  the  teaching  of  the 
Son  concerning  his  Father.  The  Old 
Testament  has  many  names  for  God,  as 
El,  Elohim,  Shaddai,  El-Shaddai,  El- 
Ely  on,  Jehovah.       But  it  also  has   the 


Basis  of  Jestts    Teaching      21 

name  of  Father,  possibly  in  the  general 
sense  of  creator  and  certainly  in  the  par- 
ticular sense  of  spiritual  relationship  to 
those  who  are  thus  bound  to  him  by 
covenant  ties. 

The  Character  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament 

He  is  spirit  and  not  matter.  Many  an- 
thropomorphic expressions  are  used  in 
the  Old  Testament  about  the  emotions 
and  the  deeds  of  God,  but  these  clearly 
are  not  designed  to  be  taken  literally. 
God  is  absolute  righteousness.  He  is 
holy  and  just  and  good.  He  is  unap- 
proachable in  ineffable  glory,  but  conde- 
scends to  manifest  his  presence  through 
the  Shekinah.  He  is  thus  ethical  in  na- 
ture, is  in  fact  the  basis  of  ethical  concep- 
tions. He  is  the  cause  of  everything, 
animate  and  inanimate,  physical  and  spir- 
itual. He  is  a  personal  God,  not  a  mere 
influence,  not  an  idol,  not  the  universe. 
He  dwells  everywhere  and  no  one  can 
escape  his  presence.     He  is  **  the  living 


22  God  the  Father 

God  "  and  manifests  the  reality  of  his 
presence  in  many  ways  that  suit  his  pur- 
poses. He  is  superhuman  and  all  power- 
ful, is  Lord  of  nature  and  not  the  slave  of 
his  own  laws.  He  can  thunder  at  Sinai 
and  he  can  speak  at  Horeb  in  the  still 
small  voice. 

God's  Covenant  with  Men 

In  nothing  does  the  Old  Testament  un- 
fold God  as  Father  so  clearly  as  in  the 
covenant  of  grace,  prompted  by  his  love 
for  sinners,  put  in  definite  shape  in  the 
promise  to  Abraham,  repeated  to  David, 
and  expounded  in  prophets  and  psalms. 
Hear  Jehovah  speaking  to  David  con- 
cerning Solomon  and  the  kingdom  : 
"He  shall  build  me  an  house  and  I  will 
establish  his  throne  forever.  I  will  be 
his  father  and  he  shall  be  my  son " 
(I  Chron.  xvii.  12  f.).  The  Messianic 
promise  presents  God  as  King  in  his 
kingdom,  the  everlasting  spiritual  king- 
dom (II  Sam.  vii.  13, 16;  Ps.  Ixxxix.  3-5). 


Basis  of  Jesus    Teaching     23 

But  God  the  Father  in  love  ofFers  his 
own  Son  as  the  priestly  sacrifice  for  sin  so 
v/ondrously  outlined  in  Isaiah  liii.  The 
Old  Testament  had  already  told  men  of 
God  the  Father.  What  has  Jesus  more 
to  say  ?  Will  he  have  a  fuller  and  a  final 
word  about  God  ? 


CHAPTER   III 

Jesus  the  Revealer  of  God  the  Father 
to  Men. 


"  He  that  hath  seen   me  hath  seen   the  Father "   (John 
xiv.  9). 


y^^OD  is  a  person  and  cannot  be  clearly 
f  T"  apprehended  by  abstract  teaching. 
The  Old  Testament  revelation 
was  a  progressive  unfolding  of  the  char- 
acter of  God  w^ith  a  promise  of  a  richer 
revelation  in  the  coming  Messiah.  The 
law  was  only  the  pedagogue  that  led  the 
Jews  to  the  great  Teacher.  Philosophy 
had  failed  to  satisfy  the  spiritual  aspira- 
tions of  men,  as  they  had  failed  to  obey 
24 


The  Revealer  of  God        25 

the  moral  law.  Grace  and  truth,  which 
came  by  Jesus  (John  i.  17)  brought  out 
the  gentler  side  of  the  divine  nature. 
Grace  is  the  distinctive  word  of  Christi- 
anity, but  Christianity  is  more  even  than 
grace. 

The  Love  of  the  Father  Sends  the  Son 

Behind  the  work  and  mission  of  Christ 
stands  revealed  in  Christ  the  love  of  God, 
stated  in  the  words  of  Jesus  himself  in 
all  probability  (though  possibly  the  words 
of  the  evangelist  John):  **  For  God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth 
on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eter- 
nal life  "  (John  iii.  16).  So  then  Jesus 
himself  is  the  supreme  proof  of  the  love 
of  the  Father  for  the  world.  The  testi- 
mony of  the  Gospel  of  John  is  here  ap- 
pealed to  and  will  be  used  constantly  on 
a  par  with  that  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
It  is  well  known  that  some  critics  are  un- 
willing to  admit  the  historical  character 


26  God  the  Father 

of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  John's  Gospel 
who  do  admit  those  in  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels. This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  that 
question,  but  ample  grounds  justify  the 
use  of  all  four  Gospels  as  competent 
witnesses  to  the  words  of  Jesus  in  histor- 
ical exegesis,  but  with  due  perspec- 
tive and  proper  apprehension  of  the 
relation  of  the  Gospels  to  each  other. 
Clearly  then  the  motive  of  Christ's  life 
is  to  fulfil  the  high  mission  of  the 
Father  in  sending  him  to  men.  In 
fact  the  Master  explicitly  and  repeat- 
edly claims  to  voice  the  will  of  the  Father. 
**  We  speak  that  which  we  know,  and 
bear  witness  of  that  which  we  have  seen  " 
(John  iii.  11).  This  he  said  to  Nicode- 
mus  in  justification  of  his  right  to  teach 
the  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  birth  at  which 
Nicodemus  stumbled.  In  a  summary  of 
his  teaching  spoken  at  the  very  end  and 
given  in  John  xii.  44-50  Jesus  closes 
thus  :  **  For  I  spake  not  from  myself  ; 
but  the  Father  that  sent  me,  he  hath  given 


The  Revealer  of  God        27 

me  a  commandment  what  I  should  say, 
and  what  I  should  speak.  And  I  know 
that  his  commandment  is  life  eternal ;  the 
things  therefore  which  I  speak,  even  as 
the  Father  hath  said  unto  me,  so  I  speak." 
In  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum  Jesus 
distinctly  claims  that  God  has  sent  him 
to  be  the  Messiah  according  to  the 
prophecy  of  Isaiah  (Luke  iv.  18  f.). 

Jesus  Qualified  to  Reveal  the  Father 

So  Christ  claimed  and  so  he  is.  On 
the  human  side  he  was  devoutly  pious, 
had  the  clearest  knowledge  of  the  Old 
Testament  teaching  of  God,  and  lived  a 
life  of  close  communion  with  the  Father. 
But  he  needed  more  than  this  if  he  was 
to  give  the  world  the  full  and  final  reve- 
lation of  God.  A  mere  man  could  tell 
of  God's  dealings  with  him  and  others 
like  him  and  could  disclose  the  aspects 
of  God's  character  into  which  he  had 
gained  insight  by  study,  by  communion 
with  God,  and  by  revelation  from  God. 


28  God  the  Father 

But  no  mere  man  could  manifest  God  to 
men  in  his  eternal,  absolute,  and  univer- 
sal relations  to  men  and  at  the  same  time 
bring  him  home  to  the  hearts  of  men  as 
a  real  person  and  as  the  loving  and  mighty- 
Father.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  to 
find  the  evangelist  John,  who  was  the 
beloved  disciple  and  who  caught  best  the 
true  character  of  Christ,  saying  of  him : 
"  And  we  beheld  his  glory,  glory  as  of 
the  only  begotten  from  the  Father" 
(John  i.  14).  This  may  be  an  allusion  to 
the  transfiguration  scene,  but  John  was 
no  Docetic  Gnostic,  for  he  says  also : 
''That  which  we  have  heard,  that  which 
we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  that  which 
we  beheld,  and  our  hands  handled,  con- 
cerning the  Word  of  life  .  .  .  de- 
clare we  unto  you  "  (I  John  i.  If.). 

But  this  is  not  all.  John  makes  the 
definite  assertion  of  the  pre-existence  of 
the  Word  with  the  Father  (John  i.  1), 
"  the  Word  was  with  God."  This  coex- 
istence with  the  Father  by  the  Word  was 


The  Revealer  of  God        29 

eternal  also,  *'in  the  beginning."  No 
ideal  pre-existence  in  the  mind  of  the 
Father  will  satisfy  the  demands  of  this 
language  nor  the  words  of  Jesus  himself 
in  John  ix.  58  :  "  Before  Abraham  was, 
I  am."  The  term  Word  (Logos)  is  used 
in  no  mere  philosophical  sense  either 
Platonic  or  Philonian,  for  **  the  Word 
became  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us " 
(John  i.  14).  Moreover,  John  has  in 
mind  the  very  point  under  discussion  and 
speaks  pointedly  on  it  when  he  says : 
**  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time : 
the  only  begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared 
him "  (John  i.  18).  The  best  ancient 
documents  here  read  "  God  only  begot- 
ten "  instead  of  **  the  only  begotten  Son," 
which  would  be  a  direct  statement  of  the 
essential  Godhead  of  Jesus.  But  what- 
ever be  the  true  reading  John  expressly 
asserts  that  "  the  Word  was  God  "  (John 
i.  1),  and  ''  the  Word  became  flesh ' '  (John 
i.  14).     The  Son  **  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 


30  God  the  Father 

Father,"  John  says,  signifying  an  eternal 
relationship.  Hence  he  is  fully  able  to 
manifest  the  Father  to  men.  He  is  the 
Word  of  God  and  so  **  hath  declared 
him  "  to  men.  The  word  rendered  de- 
clare is  in  root  our  very  word  exegesis. 
In  measured  phrase,  therefore,  John 
asserts  the  eternal  pre-existence  of  the 
Word,  the  existence  of  the  Word  with 
God,  the  identity  of  this  Word  with  God, 
an  identity  not  in  person,  but  in  essence 
and  character  for  he  is  **  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father  "  and  "hath  declared  him" 
when  he  **  became  flesh." 

But  it  is  not  in  John's  Gospel  alone 
that  Jesus  is  thus  presented  as  God. 
Matthew  expressly  explains  the  prophecy 
about  the  name  Immanuel  as  meaning 
''  God  with  us  "  (Matt.  i.  23),  and  this 
not  in  a  providential  but  a  personal  sense. 
In  the  temptations  of  Jesus  Satan  ad- 
dressed him  as  "a  Son  of  God"  (no  ar- 
ticle with  '*  Son  "  in  the  Greek,  but  with 
*'  God").     He  was  not  willing  to  admit 


The  Revealer  of  God        31 

the  full  force  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Father  at  the  baptism  when  he  called  him 
''  My  beloved  Son  "  (Mark  i.  11).  Jesus 
accepted  worship  from  the  disciples  as 
the  Son  of  God  (Matt.  xiv.  33),  and  this 
was  in  not  simply  a**  religious  value" 
sense,  whatever  the  disciples  at  this  time 
believed  about  Jesus,  for  they  *' wor- 
shipped "  him. 

The  Claim  of  Jesus  about  his  Message  con- 
cerning the  Father 

Nothing  is  plainer  than  the  high  claims 
made  by  Jesus  concerning  his  knowledge 
of  the  Father.  In  the  next  chapter  the 
precise  relation  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son  will  be  discussed  at  length.  Just 
here  we  may  properly  present  what  the 
Master  has  to  say  about  his  own  message. 
To  the  woman  of  Samaria  at  Jacob's  well 
he  said :  *'  If  thou  knewest  the  gift  of 
God,  and  who  it  is  that  saith  to  thee. 
Give  me  to  drink ;  thou  wouldst  have 
asked  of  him,  and  he  would  have  given 


32  God  the  Father 

thee  living  water "  (John  iv.  10).  To 
the  disciples,  astonished  that  he  did  not 
eat  the  food  which  they  had  brought,  he 
replied :  **  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of 
him  that  sent  me,  and  to  accomplish  his 
work  "  (John  iv.  34).  When  the  Phari- 
sees from  Jerusalem  reasoned  in  their 
hearts  that  he  was  a  blasphemer,  Jesus 
said :  "But  that  ye  may  know  that  the 
Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to  for- 
give sins  (he  saith  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy), 
I  say  unto  thee.  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed, 
and  go  unto  thy  house  "  (Mark  ii.  10  f.). 
But  not  power  alone  did  Jesus  claim, 
power  that  put  him  on  a  level  with  the 
Father.  Besides  power  he  distinctly 
avows  such  knowledge  of  the  Father  as 
no  one  else  possessed  :  "  All  things  have 
been  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father : 
and  no  one  knoweth  the  Son,  save  the 
Father:  neither  doth  any  know  the 
Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomso- 
ever the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him  " 
(Matt.  xi.  27).     Here  the  Son  expressly 


The  Revealer  of  God        33 

asserts  that  the  only  way  to  know  the 
Father  is  through  the  Son.  The  will  of 
the  Son  decides  to  whom  he  will  reveal 
the  Father.  This  high  claim  is  intolerant 
of  rivalry.  Not  Zoroaster,  not  Buddha, 
not  Confucius,  not  Mahomet,  but  Jesus 
alone  reveals  the  Father  to  men.  It  is 
impossible  to  smooth  down  this  absolute 
claim,  for  it  is  supported  by  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  especially 
in  the  Gospel  of  John.  These  words  in 
Matthew,  repeated  also  at  a  later  time 
(see  Luke  x.  22),  reinforce  the  historical 
reality  of  the  Johannine  teaching.  Nei- 
ther the  Unitarian  nor  the  Ritschlian 
view  of  Jesus  is  consonant  with  the 
claims  of  equality  with  God  here  made 
by  Christ.  So  the  Lord  Jesus  urges 
men,  in  order  to  come  to  knowledge  of 
the  Father,  to  come  to  himself.  *'  Come 
unto  me,"  says  he,  ''take  my  yoke  upon 
you,  and  learn  of  me  "  (Matt.  xi.  28  f.). 
In  fact,  Jesus  refuses  recognition  in 
heaven  before  the  Father  to  those  who 


34  God  the  Father 

deny  the  Son  here.  *'  Every  one  there- 
fore who  shall  confess  me  before  men, 
him  will  I  also  confess  before  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven.  But  whosoever  shall 
deny  me  before  men,  him  will  I  also 
deny  before  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  "  (Matt.  x.  32  f.).  No  more  di- 
vine assumption  of  authority  in  the  sphere 
of  the  spiritual  life  is  possible  than  this. 
The  way  to  the  Father's  presence  is  by 
the  approval  of  the  Son.  This  vital  iden- 
tity between  the  Father  and  the  Son  Je- 
sus announced  to  the  Galilean  multitude 
in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum  at  the 
climax  of  the  Galilean  ministry,  and  the 
announcement  repelled  the  unspiritual 
populace  who  revolted  at  the  spiritual 
conception  of  the  Messiah.  Jesus  claimed 
to  be  **  the  true  bread  of  God  "  (John  vi. 
32  f.),  "the  true  bread  out  of  heaven." 
When  they  murmured,  Jesus  replied  : 
**  No  one  can  come  to  me,  except  the 
Father  which  sent  me  draw  him  "  (John 
vi.  44),  insisting  again  that  he  alone  had 


The  Revealer  of  God        35 

**  seen  the  Father"  (John  vi.  46).  As 
they  grew  angry,  Jesus  went  still  further  : 
''  As  the  living  Father  sent  me,  and  I  live 
because  of  the  Father :  so  he  that  eateth 
me,  he  also  shall  live  because  of  me  " 
(John  vi.  57).  As  no  one  can  come  to 
the  Father  except  by  the  Son,  so  no  one 
can  come  to  the  Son  **  except  it  be  given 
unto  him  of  the  Father  "  (John  vi.  65). 
It  is  no  wonder  that  under  such  a  severe 
sifting  the  multitude  melted  away  and 
left  Jesus  in  the  synagogue  with  the 
twelve.  But  the  Father  in  heaven  had 
revealed  to  Simon  Peter  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah  as  he  now  and  afterwards 
confessed  (Matt.  xvi.  16  f.). 

If  Jesus  claimed  to  bear  witness  of  the 
Father,  he  contended  also  that  to  reject 
him  was  displeasing  to  the  Father,  "  He 
that  rejecteth  me  rejecteth  him  that  sent 
me  "  (Luke  x.  16).  If  he  bore  witness 
of  the  Father,  so  the  Father  bore  wit- 
ness of  him.  "  And  the  Father  which 
sent  me,  he  hath  borne  witness  of  me  " 


36  God  the  Father 

(John  V.  37).  At  the  baptism  (Matt.  iii. 
11),  the  Father  spoke  approval  of  his 
mission.  So  was  it  also  at  the  transfigura- 
tion (Mark  ix.  7)  and,  when  the  Greeks 
came  to  him,  the  Father  spoke  audible 
cheer  (John  xii.  28).  To  his  enemies 
therefore  Jesus  boldly  claimed  :  **  I  am 
not  alone,  but  I  and  the  Father  that  sent 
me  "  (John  viii.  16).  When  they  sneer- 
ingly  asked  him,  **  Where  is  thy  Father  ? " 
his  reply  was  ready  :  **  Ye  know  neither 
me  nor  my  Father :  if  ye  knew  me,  ye 
would  know  my  Father  also  "  (John  viii. 
19). 

It  is  no  wonder  then  that  Jesus  ex- 
presses surprise  at  the  dulness  of  Thomas, 
saying :  **  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth, 
and  the  life :  no  one  cometh  unto  the 
Father,  but  by  me.  If  ye  had  known 
me,  ye  would  have  known  my  Father 
also  :  from  henceforth  ye  know  him,  and 
have  seen  him  "  (John  xiv.  6  f.).  The 
very  climax  of  the  self-revelation  of  the 
Father  in  the  Son,  as  claimed  by  Christ, 


The  Revealer  of  God        37 

comes  in  his  reply  to  Philip's  sceptical 
appeal  that  he  **  shew  us  the  Father." 
Hear  the  earnest  plea  of  Jesus  :  **  Have  I 
been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  dost 
thou  not  know  me,  Philip  ?  He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father ;  how 
sayest  thou.  Show  us  the  Father  ?  Be- 
lievest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the  Father, 
and  the  Father  in  me  ?  "  (John  xiv.  9  f.). 
In  these  words  the  Son  expresses  the  core 
of  the  great  truth  that  he  is  the  Revealer 
to  men  of  God  the  Father.  Henceforth 
men  are  without  excuse  who  do  not 
know  the  Father,  for  he  has  so  expressed 
himself  in  the  Son  that  all  men  may  see 
and  know.  The  Father  and  the  Son 
really  abide  in  the  believer :  "  We  will 
come  and  make  our  abode  with  him  '* 
(John  xiv.  23). 

The  Character   of  God  according  to  the 
Message  of  the  Son 

If  Jesus  is  so  well  qualified  to  tell  men 
the  truth  about  God,  as  the  Evangelists 


38  God  the  Father 

say  and  as  he  himself  says,  what  then  is  his 
message  ?  What  has  he  to  say  ?  We  now 
come  to  the  heart  of  the  subject  of  this 
book.  The  succeeding  chapters  aim  to 
discuss  in  detail  the  various  aspects  of  the 
message  of  Jesus  concerning  God  the 
Father,  But  just  here  let  us  get  a  fore- 
cast of  the  whole  treatment  by  a  brief 
glance  at  the  general  features  of  the  sub- 
ject. 

The  first  positive  word  that  the  Master 
spoke  concerning  the  character  of  the 
Father,  as  given  in  the  Gospels,  is  this : 
"  God  is  a  Spirit "  or  perhaps  better 
**  God  is  spirit "  (John  iv.  24).  This 
clear  word  he  spoke  to  the  poor  Samari- 
tan woman  who  sought  to  inveigle  the 
Saviour  into  a  discussion  of  the  theolog- 
ical controversy  between  the  Jews  and 
the  Samaritans  as  to  the  true  place  of 
worship,  whether  Jerusalem  or  Gerizim. 
**  They  that  worship  him  must  worship 
in  spirit  and  truth,"  *' neither  in  this 
mountain,  nor  in  Jerusalem,  shall  ye  wor- 


The  Revealer  of  God        39 

ship  the  Father,"  he  said.  These  lumi- 
nous words  stand  out  in  bold  relief  against 
the  narrow  and  unspiritual  conception  of 
both  Jew  and  Gentile.  They  remain 
yet  the  last  and  highest  message  about 
the  nature  of  God.  The  world  to-day, 
after  dallying  with  materialism,  is  coming 
back  to  just  this  conception,  that  spirit  is 
before  matter,  that  life  is  spirit,  and  that 
the  life  of  the  world  is  God.  As  spirit 
God  must  be  approached  by  the  spirit. 
This  then  is  the  essence  of  worship,  and 
not  the  form  nor  the  place.  The  reality 
of  worship  rises  above  sacrament,  ritual, 
place,  as  God  is  eternal  spirit. 

Another  distinctive  word  that  Jesus 
uses  of  God  is  Father.  The  word  is  in 
the  Old  Testament  and  is  applied  to  God, 
but  it  remained  for  the  Son  to  familiarize 
men  with  the  term  and  the  idea.  It  is  on 
the  lips  of  Jesus  at  every  turn.  **The 
Father,"  he  says,  or  *' My  Father," 
"your  Father,"  **  our  Father,"  or  simply 
"  Father,"  "  Abba,  Father."     There  is  a 


40  God  the  Father 

difference  in  the  relations  expressed  by 
these  terms  which  will  be  brought  out 
later.  But  he  taught  his  disciples  to  say 
"  Our  Father  "  when  they  prayed  (Matt. 
vi.  9).  He  taught  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  in  a  real  and  blessed  sense.  He 
made  men  feel  that  God  is  near  and 
watches  over  them. 

One  other  general  idea  of  God  Jesus 
presented.  He  insisted  on  the  absolute 
goodness  of  God.  The  eager  young 
ruler,  who  lightly  addressed  Jesus  as 
**good  Master,"  was  quickly  reminded 
that  "  none  is  good  save  one,  even  God  " 
(Luke  xviii.  19).  This  he  did  not  to  dis- 
claim his  own  divinity,  but  to  caution  the 
young  man  and  to  pierce  his  idea  of  God 
and  Christ.  This  is  a  needed  lesson  for 
all  times.  God  is  good.  God  is  good 
to  us,  always  good  to  us. 

The  power  of  God  is  without  meas- 
ure, Jesus  taught.  **  All  things  are  pos- 
sible with  God  "  (Mark  x.  27).  His  dis- 
ciples were  distressed  at  the  hard  teaching 


The  Revealer  of  God        41 

of  Jesus  about  the  rich.  If  the  rich  had 
such  a  difficult  task,  who  then  can  be 
saved  ?  The  difficulty  is  real,  and  the 
Master  did  not  minimize  it.  He  rather 
admitted  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation 
from  the  point  of  view  of  men.  But 
there  is  a  higher  way  of  seeing  things. 
**  With  God  all  things  are  possible " 
(Matt.  xix.  26). 

Once  more  God  is  the  God  of  the  liv- 
ing, says  Jesus.  **  God  is  not  the  God 
of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living"  (Matt, 
xxii.  32).  He  is  the  living  God  himself 
and  is  the  God  of  the  living.  This  is  an 
argument  to  show  that  the  dead  rise  again, 
but  it  is  also  a  definite  message  to  the  ef- 
fect that  God  is  living.  In  a  word  then, 
as  Jesus  speaks  the  message,  God  is  the 
living  God,  God  is  spirit,  God  is  good, 
God  is  the  Father,  God  is  all  powerful, 
and  God  loves  the  world.  Spiritual  life, 
absolute  holiness,  endless  power,  and  per- 
fect love  are  the  attributes  that  distin- 
guish him  that  Jesus  called  and  taught 


42  God  the  Father 

us  to  call  Father.  To  love  God,  to  trust 
God,  to  walk  with  God,  to  find  God 
here,  to  go  to  God  at  last  through  the 
portal  of  death — this  is  eternal  life,  this 
is  the  true  destiny  of  man. 

Jesus  in  his  prayer  before  his  passion 
says  :  **  And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  they 
should  know  thee,  the  only  true  God, 
and  him  whom  thou  didst  send,  even 
Jesus  Christ"  (John  xvii.  3).  He  is  fully 
conscious  of  the  solemnity  of  his  relation 
to  men  as  the  Revealer  of  the  Father. 
He  has  not  been  able  to  make  all  men 
see  Him,  but  he  has  helped  the  disciples 
to  that  end  :  **  I  manifested  thy  name 
unto  the  men  whom  thou  gavest  me  out 
of  the  world  "  (John  xvii.  6).  He  has 
this  consolation  then  as  he  enters  the 
shadow  of  the  cross. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Relation  of  the  Father  to  the 
Son. 

«•  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son  ;  in  thee  I  am  well  pleased." 
Luke  iii.  22.     The  Father  to  the  Son. 

"  For  thou  lovedst  me  before  the  foundation  of  the  world." 
John  xvii.  24.     The  Son  to  the  Father. 

rHE  Evangelist  John  opens  his 
Gospel  with  the  statement  in 
effect  that  the  Logos  eternally 
coexisted  with  God  and  was  God.  He 
continues  in  i.  18  and  calls  him  **  the  only 
begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father."  "  And  the  Word  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  "  (John  i.  14). 

43 


44  God  the  Father 

The  Unique  Relation  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son 
This  is  most  assuredly  true.  Jesus  is 
called  **  the  only  begotten  Son"  also  in 
John  iii.  16,  18,  where  it  is  not  clear 
whether  we  have  the  words  of  Jesus 
himself  or  the  witness  of  the  Evangelist. 
The  angel  Gabriel  foretold  to  Mary  that 
her  Son  should  **  be  called  the  Son  of 
the  Most  High"  (Luke  i.  32)  and  that 
the  Lord  God  should  *'  give  unto  him 
the  throne  of  his  father  David,"  and  "  of 
his  kingdom  there  should  be  no  end  " 
(Luke  i.  32  f.).  And  to  Mary's  protest 
he  replied :  "  The  holy  thing  which  is 
begotten  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God  " 
(Luke  i.  35).  Thus  both  the  human 
nature  and  the  divine  nature  of  the  Christ 
are  asserted  by  John  the  evangelist  in 
retrospect  and  by  the  angel  Gabriel  in 
prophecy.  Did  Jesus  himself  realize 
such  a  peculiar  relationship  toward  both 
God  and  men  ?  In  particular  was  he 
conscious  of  his  Messianic  mission  and 


The  Son  45 

of  a  peculiar  connection  with  God  the 
Father  ?  In  seeking  to  learn  the  relation 
of  the  Father  to  the  Son  we  are  com- 
pelled to  use  the  words  of  Jesus  about 
that  relation.  In  three  instances  alone 
do  we  have  the  direct  words  of  the 
Father  about  the  Son,  but  these  are  full 
of  significance  and  strongly  reinforce 
what  the  Son  affirms.  As  Jesus  entered 
upon  his  public  ministry  and  came  up 
out  of  the  baptismal  water,  the  Father 
spoke  in  audible  voice,  audible  to  the  Son 
certainly,  and  said :  **  Thou  art  my  be- 
loved Son  :  in  thee  I  am  well  pleased  " 
(Mark  i.  11).  Here  sonship  of  a  special 
character  is  distinctly  asserted  by  the 
Father.  The  words  **  my  beloved " 
mark  him  off  from  other  **  sons  of  God  " 
and  the  "  good  pleasure  "  is  more  abso- 
lute than  that  expressed  about  believers 
merely  (Luke  ii.  14)  although  the  same 
word  is  used  in  both  cases. 

This  testimony  was  at  the  introduction 
of  the  Messiah  to  his  work.     In  the  last 


46  God  the  Father 

year  of  the  public  ministry,  when  the 
Galilean  ministry,  like  the  earlier  Judean, 
had  resulted  in  the  alienation  of  the  peo- 
ple through  jealousy  of  the  leaders  and 
lack  of  spiritual  perception  among  the 
masses,  the  Saviour  is  facing  his  death. 
On  the  transfiguration  mount  the  Father 
once  more  calls  him  **my  beloved  Son'* 
(Matt.  xvii.  5).  In  the  last  week  of 
Christ's  public  work  the  message  of  the 
Greeks  greatly  agitates  the  heart  of 
Jesus.  They  will  come  to  him  only  by 
his  death.  He  has  real  agony  before 
Gethsemane  and  cries  out :  *'  Father, 
save  me  from  this  hour."  But  he  in- 
stantly adds :  **  Father,  glorify  thy 
name."  The  Father  heard  this  appeal 
and  replied  in  audible  voice  understood 
by  him  though  not  clearly  by  the  multi- 
tude :  **I  have  both  glorified  it,  and  will 
glorify  it  again  "  (John  xii.  27  f.).  For 
the  rest  we  must  first  see  the  Father 
through  the  Son's  person  and  message. 
Thus    we    can    gain    a  point    of     view 


The  Son  47 

by  which  we  may  form  some  adequate 
conception  of  the  interrelation  that 
subsists     between    the    Father   and    the 

Son. 

Jesus  early   became  conscious  that  he 
was  the  Son   of  God  in  a  special  way. 
How  soon  the  Messianic  consciousness 
dawned  in  his  mind  we  do  not  know,  nor 
how  fully  he  at  first  grasped  the  great 
fact  in  his  life.     That  he  grew  "  in  favor 
with  God  and  men  "  (Luke  ii.  52)  we  do 
know.       When   first  *' the    boy   Jesus" 
emerges    out  of   the    obscurity    of   the 
silent    years    at  Nazareth,   the    boy    of 
twelve  left  in  Jerusalem  by  Joseph  and 
Mary,    he    exhibits    knowledge  of   his 
unique  position  in   the  world.     **  Knew 
ye  not  that  I   must  be  in  my   Father's 
house?"  he    pleaded,    when    they    ex- 
pressed  surprise    at  finding    him    there. 
He    describes    God    as    *' my  Father, " 
whether   we    read    ''house"   or  ''busi- 
ness."    He  has  already   come  into    the 
consciousness  of  his  real  self.     By  "my 


48  God  the  Father 

Father  "he  meant  more   than  by   **  our 
Father." 

The  words  *'  my  Father  "  are  often  on 
his  Hps  in  after  years.  The  first  time 
that  the  Messiah  appears  in  Jerusalem 
after  his  baptism,  he  boldly  asserts 
authority  over  the  temple  and  drives  the 
money  changers  and  market  venders 
out.  **  Make  not,"  said  he,  *'  my 
Father's  house  a  house  of  merchandise" 
(John  ii.  16).  It  was  his  Father's  house 
in  a  sense  that  was  not  true  of  mere 
worshipers  of  God.  When  the  Jews  in 
Jerusalem  find  fault  with  Jesus  for  having 
healed  the  impotent  man  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  he  says :  **  My  Father  worketh 
even  until  now,  and  I  work  "  (John  v. 
17).  The  effect  of  this  claim  was  in- 
stantaneous. **The  Jews  sought  the 
more  to  kill  him,  because  he  not  only 
broke  the  Sabbath,  but  also  called  God 
his  own  Father,  making  himself  equal 
with  God  "  (John  v.  18).  It  will  not  do 
to  say  that  the  Jews  here  misunderstood 


The  Son  49 

the  claims  of  Jesus  as  to  his  unique  rela- 
tion to  the  Father,  for  he  proceeded  at 
once  to  prove  the  high  claims  of  equality 
with  the  Father.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
prove  by  further  exegetical  remark  from 
the  use  of  the  phrase  **  my  Father  "  the 
uniqueness  of  the  relation  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  Let  a  few  quota- 
tions suffice.  *'  All  things  have  been 
delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father  "  (Matt. 
xi.  27) ;  "  My  Father  giveth  you  the 
true  bread  out  of  heaven  "  (John  vi.  32)  ; 
**  For  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it 
unto  thee,  but  my  Father  who  is  in 
heaven"  (Matt.  xvi.  17)  ;  "  In  heaven 
their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face 
of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven  "  (Matt. 
xviii.  10)  ;  **  But  I  honor  my  Father,  and 
ye  dishonor  me"  (John  viii.  49).  These 
are  representative  sayings  of  Jesus  in 
which  he  calls  God  '*  my  Father." 

It  is  impossible  to  say  that  here  Jesus 
merely  claimed  God  as  his  Father  in  the 
same  sense  that  any  other  child  of  God 

D 


50  God  the  Father 

has  the  right  to  do.  To  his  enemies  he 
said  :  **  Ye  have  not  known  him  :  but  I 
know  him ;  and  if  I  should  say  I  know 
him  not,  I  shall  be  like  you,  a  liar  "(John 
viii.  55).  He  insists  on  this  unique  rela- 
tionship in  the  face  of  bitter  denial. 

Often  Christ  speaks  of  God  as  ''the 
Father."  This  usage  is  almost  confined 
to  the  Gospel  of  John  where  it  is  very 
common,  while  *' my  Father  "  is  com- 
mon in  all  the  Gospels.  In  John  **  the 
Father  "  is  sometimes  God  in  relation  to 
his  children  in  general,  though  even  here 
in  contrast  to  the  Son  as  in  John  v.  23  : 
**  That  all  may  honour  the  Son,  even  as 
they  honour  the  Father. "  Usually,  how- 
ever, in  John's  Gospel,  the  expression 
**  the  Father  "  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  rep- 
resents God  in  his  relation  to  the  Son, 
as  ''  the  Father  loveth  the  Son  "  (John  v. 
20),  "  even  as  the  Father  knoweth  me 
and  I  know  the  Father"  (John  x.  15), 
"  because  I  go  to  the  Father  "  (John  xvi. 
10).     The  Father  and  the  Son  are  often 


The  Son  51 

mentioned  together  in  the  discourses  of 
Christ  in  the  Gospel  of  John.  The  pas- 
sage in  Matt.  xi.  29-30  (cf.  also  Luke  x. 
22),  which  is  so  much  like  the  words  of 
Christ  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  has  likewise 
"  the  Father  "  and  '*  the  Son  "  in  mutual 
relationship  of  utmost  intimacy. 

Sometimes,  as  in  prayer,  Jesus  says 
simply  ''Father."  In  Luke  x.  21  he 
prays :  **  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth,"  and  he  goes  on  in  the 
same  verse,  *'  yea,  Father,  for  so  it  was 
well-pleasing  in  thy  sight,"  though  here 
the  Greek  has  the  article  with  the  voca- 
tive. Beside  the  grave  of  Lazarus  Christ 
spoke  with  confident  trust :  "  Father,  I 
thank  thee  that  thou  heardest  me  "  (John 
xi.  41).  In  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane 
Jesus  cried  out  to  God  :  *'  Father,  if  thou 
be  willing"  (Luke  xxii.  42),  **  Abba, 
Father  "  (Mark  xiv.  36)  in  the  language 
of  childhood  in  both  Aramaic  and  Greek 
(with  the  article  with  each).  On  the 
cross  he  prayed  :  **  Father,  forgive  them  " 


52  God  the  Father 

(Luke  xxiii.  34),  a  disputed  passage,  but 
most  probably  genuine.  He  died  with 
the  utterance  of  these  words :  "  Father, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit " 
(Luke  xxiii.  46).  In  a  world  of  hypoc- 
risy and  religiosity  Jesus  stood  in  lonely 
and  lofty  purity  and  sincerity.  He  found 
full  fellowship  of  spirit  only  with  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  His  heart 
beat  in  compassion  for  men  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  men,  but  at  the  same  time  he 
stood  apart  from  men.  His  highest  and 
holiest  communion  was  with  the  Father 
whose  only  begotten  Son  he  was.  If 
this  was  true,  more  was  true. 

W^hat  is  the  Relation  between  Father  and 
Son  in  Nature 

Has  the  Father  given  to  the  Son  in  ac- 
tual being  what  his  other  children  do  not 
possess  ?  It  is  sometimes  said  that  evolu- 
tion brings  Christ  under  inevitable  law 
and  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  differ 
in  nature  from  other  men,  however  far 


The  Son  53 

he  excels  them  in  character.  But  even 
on  scientific  grounds  Jesus  is  the  grand 
exception  in  the  race,  unless  we  deny  the 
records  that  we  have  about  his  career. 
Those  who  revolt  at  the  superhuman, 
not  to  say  supernatural,  calmly  brush 
aside  the  Gospel  accounts  as  discredited, 
but  then  the  supreme  character  remains. 
It  was  drawn  by  somebody.  The  story 
of  the  virgin  birth  is  thrust  into  the  limbo 
of  the  legendary.  But  what  then  be- 
comes of  Christ  ?  Whose  Son  is  he  ? 
This  very  question  the  Master  pressed 
home  to  his  enemies  after  their  complete 
rout  on  the  last  day  of  his  teaching  in  the 
temple.  If  he  is  merely  **  the  Son  of 
David"  and  so  merely  human,  "how 
then  doth  David  in  the  Spirit  call  him 
Lord?"  (Matt.  xxii.  42  f.)  On  the 
other  hand,  **  If  David  then  calleth  him 
Lord  "  and  so  he  is  only  divine,  **  how 
is  he  his  son  ?  "  (Matt.  xxii.  45.)  ''  No 
one  was  able  to  answer  him  a  word ' '  then, 
nor  can  any  one  solve  that  riddle  now 


54  God  the  Father 

who  does  not  admit  the  real  humanity 
and  the  real  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  no  mere  official  relation  nor  does 
Jesus  simply  have  the  religious  value 
of  God's  Son.  The  relation  is  vital  and 
eternal. 

It  is  true  that  Jesus  urges  those  who 
follow  him  to  '*  be  one  ;  even  as  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee  "  (John 
xvii.  20  f.),  **  that  they  may  be  one,  even 
as  we  are  "  (John  xvii.  11).  But  none  the 
less  the  Son  insists  on  a  real  difference 
between  the  relation  of  the  Son  and  the 
disciples  and  that  of  the  Son  and  the 
Father.  "  And  now,  Father,  glorify  thou 
me  with  thine  own  self  with  the  glory 
which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world 
was"  (John  xvii.  5).  Here  he  isolates 
the  Father  and  himself  apart  from  the 
world  and  before  there  was  a  world,  when 
he  was  with  the  Father's  "own  self." 
Ideal  pre-existence  is  inconceivable  in  this 
passage.  We  may  not  penetrate  the  mys- 
teries of   the    divine    essence,    but   here 


The  Son  55 

Father  and  Son  are  set  apart  from  all  the 
world  in  being  and  glory  and  are  on  a 
plane  of  perfect  equality  that  is  incom- 
prehensible save  on  the  understanding 
that  Jesus  is  in  very  nature  the  Son  of 
God.  It  is  only  as  we  perceive  this  fact 
that  we  can  give  hearty  respect  to  one 
who  made  such  claims  about  himself  as 
Jesus  did.  With  this  frank  admission 
there  is  no  discord  when  he  says  :  *'  I  am 
the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life :  no 
one  Cometh  unto  the  Father,  but  by  me  " 
(John  xiv.  6).  Thus  he  is  able  to  ''shew 
us  the  Father  "  because  he  is  able  truth- 
fully to  say :  "I  am  in  the  Father,  and 
the  Father  in  me"  (John  xiv.  11).  So 
we  can  be  brought  into  contact  with  the 
Father,  '*  I  in  them  and  thou  in  me  " 
(John  xvii.  23). 

It  is  not  surprising  then  to  hear  Jesus 
call  himself  *'  the  Son  of  God  "  as  he  does 
a  few  times.  This  is  the  constant  impli- 
cation of  the  words  so  often  on  his  lips, 
*'  my  Father,"  ''  the  Father,"  ''  the  Son." 


56  God  the  Father 

In  the  early  part  of  the  ministry  at  the 
second  visit  to  Jerusalem  he  was  accused 
by  the  Jews  of  calling  "  God  his  own 
Father"  and  "making  himself  equal 
with  God."  So  far  from  denying  this 
charge  he  even  said  in  defence  :  *'  The 
hour  Cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead 
shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God  ; 
and  they  that  hear  shall  live"  (John 
v.  25).  When  Lazarus  was  at  the  point 
of  death,  Jesus  boldly  declared  that  this 
sickness  was  "  for  the  glory  of  God,  that 
the  Son  of  God  may  be  glorified  thereby  " 
(John  xi.  4).  But  most  of  all,  when  put 
on  oath  by  the  high  priest  at  his  trial  be- 
fore the  Sanhedrin,  Jesus  asserted  ex- 
pressly that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  :  **  I 
adjure  thee  by  the  living  God,  that  thou 
tell  us  whether  thou  be  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Thou 
hast  said"  (Matt.  xxvi.  63  f.).  Mark 
represents  Jesus  as  saying  in  reply  simply : 
"  I  am  "  (Mark  xiv.  62). 

It  seems  clear  from  this  what  the  Jews 


The  Son  57 

understood  Christ  to  mean  by  the  ex- 
pression "  the  Son  of  God."  At  any  rate 
his  own  teachings  make  clear  what  he 
meant  to  claim.  In  view  of  all  that  is 
true,  it  is  rather  surprising  to  find  the 
words  "the  Son  of  God"  used  so  little 
by  the  Master.  Perhaps  he  avoided  it 
partly  because  of  possible  political  conse- 
quences as  he  usually  avoided  the  use  of 
**  Messiah  "  for  the  same  reason.*  It  is 
not  to  be  replied  that  Jesus  claimed  to  be 
God  only  in  the  sense  true  of  those  who 
were  given  authority  by  God.  He  used 
this  argument  (John  x.  34-36).  "  Is  it 
not  written  in  your  law,  I  said,  Ye  are 
gods?"  in  rebuttal  of  the  charge  that  he 
was  guilty  of  blasphemy,  "  because  that 
thou,  being  a  man,  makest  thyself  God  " 
(John  X.  33).  He  had  just  said  :  '*  I  and 
the  Father  are  one  "  (John  x.  30).  He 
did  not  deserve  the  charge  of  blasphemy 
even  if  he  was  only  a  god  in  the  lower 
sense,  by  no  means  admitting  that  this 
was  all  the  truth.     The  term  therefore 


58  God  the  Father 

is  personal,  expressing  his  relation  to  God, 
as  well  as  official  and  Messianic. 

Jesus  did  claim  his  special  divine  Son- 
ship  when  it  was  wise  or  necessary,  but 
he  rejoiced  to  assert  his  humanity.  The 
phrase  '*  the  Son  of  man"  is  ever  in  his 
mouth.  This  expression  cannot  be  whit- 
tled down  to  mean  merely  **a  man." 
It  had  a  Messianic  significance,  though 
perhaps  not  generally  so  understood,  and 
was  pre-eminently  fitting  for  him  who 
was  in  every  sense  the  ideal  man,  the 
representative  man  of  all  time.  The  very 
pregnancy  of  the  term  makes  it  all  the 
more  suitable.  He  used  the  words  **  the 
Son  of  man  "  not  only  when  speaking  of 
his  earthly  work,  but  when  discussing  his 
power  and  glory,  as  when  he  replied  to 
the  question  of  the  high  priest  at  the  trial 
before  the  Sanhedrin  :  **  Henceforth  ye 
shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  at  the 
right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  on  the 
clouds  of  heaven  "  (Matt.  xxvi.  64). 
There  is  nothing  to  justify  us  in  speaking 


The  Son  59 

of  the  divinity  of  Christ  in  distinction 
from  the  deity  of  the  Father.  This  is  a 
Ritschlian  refinement  foreign  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Gospels.  John  said  ex- 
pressly :  **  The  Word  was  God  "  (John 

i.  1). 

The  Father  mid  Son  have  an  Interflow  of 
Knowledge 

Jesus  was  a  man  and  grew  in  knowl- 
edge. But  he  also  was  God  and  the 
Father's  will  and  word  came  richly  to 
him  in  ways  not  true  of  mere  men.  "For 
the  Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  sheweth 
him  all  things  that  himself  doeth 
(John  V.  20).  Once  more  in  the  same 
great  discourse  Jesus  said:  **As  I  hear,  I 
judge;  and  .  .  .  I  seek  not  mine  own 
will,  but  the  will  of  him  that  sent  me  " 
(John  V.  30).  When  the  hostile  Jews 
marvelled  at  the  source  of  his  teaching, 
since  he  had  not  their  scholastic  training, 
Jesus  said  simply  :  *'  My  teaching  is  not 
mine,  but  his  that  sent  me"  (John  vii. 


-h. 


60  God  the  Father 

16).  By  the  open  grave  of  Lazarus 
Christ  in  calm  trust  looked  up  to  God 
and  said :  **  Father,  I  thank  thee  that 
thou  heardest  me  "  (John  xi.  41),  adding  : 
**  And  I  knew  that  thou  hearest  me  al- 
ways." Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  absolute 
teacher  of  righteousness  by  reason  of  his 
relation  to  the  Father. 

And  yet  he  had  some  limitations  in  his 
knowledge.  He  himself  said  of  the  day 
of  his  second  coming  :  "  But  of  that  day 
or  that  hour  knoweth  no  one,  not  even 
\  the  angels  in  heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but 
the  Father"  (Mark  xiii.  32).  Why 
Christ  had  superhuman  knowledge  and 
yet  was  astonished  at  the  faith  of  some 
and  the  doubt  of  others  we  cannot  tell. 
^  f  The  mind  of  Christ  is  part  of  the  mys- 
tery of  his  person.  But  we  may  rever- 
ently assert  that  what  he  did  teach  was 
authoritative  and  final.  He  taught  no 
error,  though  he  did  not  teach  every- 
thing. He  is  the  final  authority  where  he 
does  speak,  for  he  speaks  the  will  of  the 


The  Son  6i 

Father.  In  the  darkness  of  the  cross, 
Jesus  cried  out :  "  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  (Matt,  xxvii. 
46).  Here  the  frown  of  the  Father  rested 
on  the  Son  as  he  died  for  our  sins ;  he 
was  looked  on  as  sin  indeed.  How  the 
Father,  when  one  in  nature  with  the  Son, 
could  thus  forsake  the  Son  we  do  not 
venture  to  discuss. 

The  Father  and  the  Son  Work  in  Harmony 

There  is  no  self-will  in  the  Son  toward 
the  Father.  He  gladly  claims  union  with 
the  Father  in  nature,  knowledge,  and 
power.  *'The  Son  can  do  nothing  of 
himself,  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father 
doing"  (John  v.  19).  And  this  is  not 
mere  imitation  as  earthly  children  copy 
the  deeds  of  their  parents.  **  For  as  the 
Father  hath  life  in  himself,  even  so  gave 
he  to  the  Son  also  to  have  life  in  himself  " 
(John  V.  26).  With  such  power  and  rank 
the  Master  dares  to  claim  for  himself 
honor  like  that  of  the  Father  :  **  That  all 


62  God  the  Father 

may  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor 
the  Father.  He  that  honoreth  not  the 
Son  honoreth  not  the  Father  which  sent 
him  "  (John  v.  23  f.)-  This  he  said  to 
the  hostile  Jews  in  Jerusalem  who  pro- 
tested against  his  ""  making  himself  equal 
with  God." 

No  mere  man  could  soberly  say  what 
Matthew  represents  Christ  as  saying  after 
the  message  from  John  the  Baptist :  **  All 
things  have  been  delivered  unto  me  of 
my  Father"  (Matt.  xi.  27).  This  su- 
preme authority  Jesus  often  asserted. 
Even  as  he  entered  into  the  dark  hours 
of  the  Passion  Week,  he  walked  steadily 
on,  John  says,  **  Knowing  that  the  Father 
had  given  all  things  into  his  hands  "  (John 
xiii.  3).  After  his  resurrection  from  the 
grave,  the  once  homeless  teacher  boldly 
uttered  a  cry  of  victory  as  he  sent  a  band 
of  disciples  on  a  world  conquest :  *'  All 
authority  hath  been  given  unto  me  in 
heaven  and  in  earth  "  (Matt,  xxviii.  18). 
Satan  had  offered  him  power  on  earth  for 


The  Son  63 

the  price  of  a  bow  of  worship,  but  now 
the  Master  has  power  assured  in  heaven 
and  earth. 

The   Father  and  the   Son   are    One   in 
Character 

In  the  nature  of  the  case  Christ  would 
say  little  about  being  as  holy  as  God  the 
Father.  Once  in  fact  when  a  rich  young 
ruler  came  to  him  and  called  him  **  Good 
Master,"  Jesus  questioned  his  use  of  the 
adjective  "  good  "  in  reference  to  himself. 
*'  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  None  is 
good  save  one,  even  God"  (Mark  x.  18). 
But  we  do  not  here  understand  Christ  to 
deny  that  he  is  good,  as  some  say,  but 
only  to  assert  absolute  goodness  of  God 
alone  from  the  ruler's  point  of  view. 
The  young  man  doubtless  did  not  take 
Christ  to  be  divine,  as  he  is  in  reality. 
Hence  he  needed  care  in  the  use  of  the 
word  ''good."  The  very  caution  of 
Christ  here  serves  to  set  in  relief  his  own 
character.     He  is  good  as  God  is  good. 


64  God  the  Father 

We  also  think  of  Jesus  as  the  expression 
of  God's  goodness.  In  this  sense  God  is 
as  good  as  Jesus.  This  is  the  verdict  of 
men,  practically  of  all  men.  No  adjec- 
tives are  used  to  picture  the  life  of  Jesus 
in  the  Gospels.  He  himself  says  nothing 
about  his  personal  character  save  as  we 
gather  it  in  hints  and  deeds.  But  his 
character  is  distinct  and  clear  cut.  If  to 
see  Jesus  was  to  see  the  Father,  then  is 
Jesus  like  the  Father  in  spirit  and  life. 
This  Christ  claimed  for  himself :  **  If  ye 
had  known  me,  ye  would  have  known 
my  Father  also  "  (John  xiv.  7).  But  the 
Father  called  him  his  **  beloved  Son " 
and  expressed  good  pleasure  in  him 
(Matt.  iii.  17).  We  have  been  treading 
on  holy  ground  as  we  have  sought  to  un- 
fold the  relation  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  He  joyfully  confessed :  "  My 
Father  is  greater  than  I  "  (John  xiv.  28). 
He  is  speaking  of  office,  but  they  are 
one  in  nature,  knowledge,  power,  and 
character.     The  eternal  Father  and  the 


The  Son  65 

eternal  Son  are  also  one  in  love  for  a  lost 
and  ruined  world. 

The  Apologetic  of  Jesus 

Perhaps  a  paragraph  should  be  added 
for  the  purpose  of  calling  attention  to  the 
great  number  of  Christ's  sayings  about 
the  relation  between  the  Father  and  him- 
self. He  speaks  far  more  about  this  as- 
pect of  the  Father's  revelation  than  about 
any  other.  There  are  obvious  reasons 
for  this  fact.  For  one  thing  it  was  a 
necessary  introduction  to  his  right  to 
speak  so  full  and  free  a  message  from 
the  Father.  His  high  claim  to  peculiar 
oneness  with  the  Father  could  not  be 
taken  on  his  mere  statement.  This  Jesus 
freely  admitted,  though  insisting  that  his 
words  were  true  even  if  they  were  not 
accepted  on  his  affirmation.  In  a  true 
sense  Christ  was  on  the  defensive  before 
his  enemies,  and  when  attacked  for  mak- 
ing himself  equal  with  God,  he  had  to 
enter  into  extended  discussion  of  the  holy 


66  God  the  Father 

relation  subsisting  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  This  is  seen  especially  at 
the  feast  in  Jerusalem  (John  v.),  at  the 
feast  of  tabernacles  (John  vii.  7-x.  21), 
at  the  feast  of  dedication  (John  x.  22- 
42). 

In  the  farewell  discourse  to  the  disci- 
ples in  the  upper  room  just  before  his 
death  Christ  opened  his  heart  to  them 
and  spoke  frankly  of  the  Father,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  himself  (John  xii-xvii.). 
This  passage  in  John  is  the  holy  of  holies 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  And  then  be- 
sides Christ  had  come  into  the  world  to 
manifest  the  Father,  to  win  the  world 
back  to  the  Father.  It  is  natural  there- 
fore that  he  should  speak  often  of  his 
own  relation  to  the  Father  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  high  mission.  All  else  is 
after  the  King.  The  great,  the  supreme 
message  of  Jesus  is  the  revelation  that  he 
offers  in  himself  of  God  the  Father.  If 
he  speaks  less  at  length  about  other  rela- 
tions of  the  Father,  we  must  remember 


TJie  Sou  67 

that   in    Christ    God    is    reconciling    the 
world  to  himself. 

The  Father  s  Satisfaction  in  the  Son  \y^ 

We  are  under  necessity  to  be  cautious 
in  all  that  we  say  concerning  the  emo- 
tions of  God  the  Father.  But  he  thrice 
spoke  audibly  his  good  pleasure  in  the 
person  and  work  of  the  Son,  as  has  already 
been  shown,  at  the  baptism,  at  the  trans- 
figuration, and  when  the  Greeks  came  to 
seek  Jesus.  The  Son  came  forth  from 
the  Father,  and  went  back  to  the  Father  : 
"  I  came  out  from  the  Father  .  .  . 
and  go  unto  the  Father  "  (John  xvi.  28). 
But  all  during  his  earthly  ministry  the 
Father  was  with  him  :  *'  and  yet  I  am 
not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  me  " 
(John  xvi.  32).  He  never  doubted  the 
confidence  that  the  Father  had  in  him. 
When  he  faced  his  death,  he  calmly 
prayed  :  "  Father,  the  hour  is  come  ; 
glorify  thy  Son,  that  the  Son  may  glor- 
ify thee  "  (John  xvii.  2j.     He  could  give 


68  God  the  Father 

his  disciples  no  greater  measure  of  his 
love  for  them  than  the  Father's  love  for 
him  :  **  Even  as  the  Father  hath  loved 
me,  I  also  have  loved  you  "  (John  xv.  9). 
He  was  doing  what  he  did  *'  that  the 
world  may  know  that  I  love  the  Father  " 
(John  xiv.  31). 

In  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  he  did 
not  incur  the  Father's  displeasure,  for  he 
only  asked  that  the  cup  pass,  ''  Father,  if 
thou  be  willing  "  (Luke  xxii.  42).  And 
even  as  on  the  cross  the  Son  cried  out 
that  the  Father  had  forsaken  him,  yet  it 
was  for  this  very  purpose  that  the  Father 
had  sent  him  into  the  world.  *'  For 
God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave 
his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  eternal  life  "  (John  iii.  16).  The 
heart  of  Christ  was  torn  with  grief  at  the 
thought  of  separation  from  his  disciples, 
but  he  ventured  to  say  that,  if  they  really 
knew  what  it  meant  for  them  and  for 
him  that  he  go,  they  would  not  grieve. 


The  Son  69    ^    i 

**  If  ye  loved  me,  ye  would  have  rejoiced,      A      j 
because  I  go    unto    the  Father  "   (John        I      - 
xiv.    28).     Henceforth    he    "is   in   the       j 
bosom  of  the  Father"  (John  i.  18).    But       I      | 
the  Father  is  forever  nearer  to  us  and  we        \     \ 
come,  as  Thomas  did,  and  say  to  Jesus,         ^j 
**  My  Lord   and  my    God  "    (John  xx.        ^ 
28).     Jesus  told  Mary  Magdalene  to  say 
to  the  disciples  for  him  :     *'  I  ascend  unto 
my  Father  and  your  Father,  and  my  God 
and  your  God  "  (John  xx.  17).     So  we 
draw    near   to  the  Father,  for  Jesus  in       / 
heaven  is  the  God-man  still,  our  Brother /^ 
and  Friend,  our  God  and  Saviour. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Relation  of  the  Father  to  the 
Holy  Spirit, 


"  And  I  will  pray  the  Father  and  he  shall  give  you  anothe 
Comforter,  that  he  may  be  with  you  for  ever,  even  the  Spirit 
of  truth."     (Johnxiv.  i6). 


w 


E  are  not  here  concerned  with 
metaphysical  speculations. 


The  Fact  of  the  Trinity 

There  is  no  technical  discussion  of  the 
Trinity  in  the  New  Testament.  But  the 
fact  is  clearly  revealed  in  various  parts  of 
the  Scriptures.      The  Gospels  form   no 

70 


The  Holy  Spirit  71 

exception.  If  we  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
would  make  necessary  a  dual  God.  His 
own  deity  is  indubitable.  However,  a 
Triune  God  is  the  manifest  unfolding 
of  Christ.  If  he  reveals  the  Father,  he 
also  declares  his  equality  with  the  Father. 
If  he  claims  deity  for  himself,  he  also  as- 
serts the  deity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Jesus 
does  not  give  a  detailed  discussion  of  the 
nature  of  the  Trinity.  But  the  essential 
fact  revealed  is  that  God  is  one  :  *'  The 
Lord  our  God,  the  Lord  is  one  "  (Mark 
xii.  29).  This  is  not  a  new  revelation, 
for  the  Old  Testament  is  uniformly 
monotheistic  in  teaching  and  Jesus  here 
is  quoting  the  Old  Testament. 

But  beside  this  cardinal  fact  in  the 
teaching  of  Christ  lies  the  other  fact  of 
his  own  deity  and  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  state  in  scientific 
formula  the  idea  of  the  Trinity.  Three 
Persons  in  one  nature  may  seem  intan- 
gible to    us.     Be  it  so.     We   must   dis- 


72  God  the  Father 

criminate  sharply  between  the  fact  of  the 
Trinity  and  theories  about  the  Trinity. 
What  Christ  reveals  is  not  a  mere  mo- 
dal Trinity.  It  is  not  that  God  manifests 
himself  now  as  Father,  now  as  Son,  now  as 
Holy  Spirit.  The  rather  all  three  Persons 
co-exist  in  the  one  essence  and  co-work  in 
the  salvation  of  men.  Humility  well  be- 
comes us  all  in  applying  to  the  infinite 
Godhead  the  metes  and  bounds  of  our 
finite  reason.  Christ  himself  is  sufficient 
guarantee  for  the  truth  that  he  reveals 
even  if  it  is  incomprehensible  to  our  mind. 
He  is  the  truth  and  can  speak  only  the 
truth.     We  may  rest  in  him. 

Jesus  himself  under  the  Spirit's  Guidance  in 
his  Earthly  Life 

The  very  birth  of  Jesus  illustrates  the 
intimate  and  vital  union  of  the  three 
Persons  in  the  Godhead.  The  angel  said 
to  Mary  that  Jesus  was  to  be  begotten 
of  the  Holy  Spirit :  *'  The  Holy  Spirit 
shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power  of 


The  Holy  Spirit  73 

the  Most  High  shall  overshadow  thee  " 
(Luke  i.  35),  and  he  is  to  be  God's  Son 
for  this  very  reason :  *'  Wherefore  also 
the  holy  thing  which  is  begotten  shall 
be  called  the  Son  of  God  "  (ibid.).  At 
the  baptism  of  Jesus  likewise  the  Father 
audibly  expressed  his  approval  of  the  Son 
while  the  Holy  Spirit  appeared  in  bodily 
form  like  a  dove  and  rested  on  Jesus 
(Luke  iii.  22).  It  is  not  here  claimed 
that  this  significant  event  explains  clearly 
the  relations  that  subsist  in  the  Trinity, 
but  only  the  vital  reality  and  close  con- 
nection of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  We 
may  not  say  that  Jesus  was  not  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  before  this 
time,  but  simply  that  now  in  a  formal 
manner  as  he  enters  upon  his  public 
Messianic  mission  the  Father  and  the 
Spirit  set  the  seal  of  their  approval  upon 
him. 

It  is  beyond  dispute  that  Jesus  in  his 
earthly  life  was  under  the  control  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  as  well  as  in  subjection  to  the 


74  God  the  Father 

will  of  the  Father.  Jesus  was  led  of 
the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  (Matt.  iv.  1), 
and  in  the  temptation  there  the  Spirit  was 
with  him.  In  his  first  sermon  at  Naza- 
reth he  said  :  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is 
upon  me"  (Luke  iv.  18).  He  main- 
tained that  he  wrought  his  miracles  by 
the  Spirit  of  God  (Matt.  xii.  28),  though 
evidently  with  no  reflection  on  the  power 
of  the  Father  nor  of  his  own  power. 
The  way  in  which  the  divine  power 
worked  in  him  in  the  case  of  the  mira- 
cles was  by  the  Spirit.  We  need  not  as- 
sert that  Christ  did  not  draw  upon  his  own 
divine  power.  To  do  so  would  lay  too 
much  stress  upon  the  difference  between 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  Jesus  lived  the 
life  of  God  :  *'  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will 
of  him  that  sent  me  "  (John  iv.  34) ;  and 
in  full  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Spirit: 
'*  In  that  same  hour  he  rejoiced  in  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  said,  I  thank  thee,  O 
Father  "  (Luke  x.  21).  So  reads  the  cor- 
rect text  here. 


The  Holy  Spirit  75 

The  Holy  Spirit  a  Person  in  the  Same  Sense 
that  the  Father  is  a  Person 
It  is  necessary  at  least  to  call  attention 
to  this  important  fact,  since  some  Chris- 
tians fail  to  perceive  it.  The  passages 
just  quoted  concerning  the  birth  and  life 
of  Jesus  bear  witness  to  the  distinct  per- 
sonality of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  Spirit 
is  not  merely  the  power  of  God  or  the 
influence  of  God.  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit  are  repeatedly  mentioned  together 
on  the  same  plane  of  personal  reality.  In 
the  discourses  in  the  upper  room  (John 
xiii-xvii.),  Jesus  many  times  assumes 
the  personal  existence  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  as  true  a  sense  as  he  himself  existed. 
Let  one  quotation  suffice  :  **  But  the  Com- 
forter, even  the  Holy  Spirit,  whom  the 
Father  will  send  in  my  name,  he  shall 
teach  you  all  things  "  (John  xiv.  26).  In 
the  Great  Commission  Jesus  sends  forth 
the  disciples  to  baptize  *'  in  the  name  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost"  (Matt,   xxviii.   19).     The 


76  God  the  Father 

teaching  of  Christ  is  clear  on  this  sub- 
ject. 

The  Order  of  the  Persons  in  the  'Trinity 

In  his  earthly  career  the  Son  is  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  the 
other  facts  given  seem  clearly  to  show 
that  this  is  not  the  normal  situation.  We 
hesitate  to  lay  special  emphasis  on  such  a 
point  as  this,  for,  of  course,  in  the  order 
of  the  Godhead  there  is  perfect  harmony 
as  well  as  identity  of  essence.  And  yet 
when  the  three  are  spoken  of  together 
it  is  usually  in  the  order  of  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit.  And  more  than  this,  the  Son 
himself  asserts  an  order  of  rank  over  the 
Spirit  in  one  respect :  **  But  when  the 
Comforter  is  come,  whom  I  will  send 
unto  you  from  the  Father,  even  the 
Spirit  of  truth,  which  proceedeth  from 
the  Father,  he  shall  bear  witness  of  me  " 
(John  XV.  26).  In  John  xiv.  26,  he  had 
said :  *'  whom  the  Father  will  send  in 
my  name."     Moreover,  after  the  resur- 


The  Holy  Spirit  77 

rection  Jesus  **  breathed  on  them  and 
saith  unto  them,  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Spirit"  (John  xx.  22).  Jesus  said: 
"  The  Father  is  greater  than  I  "  (John  xiv. 
28).  In  point  of  rank  therefore  it  seems 
clear  that  there  is  a  difference  in  the 
Trinity. 

But  the  Son  ''is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,"  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  Jesus  said, 
**  shall  glorify  me ;  for  he  shall  take  of 
mine,  and  shall  declare  it  unto  you " 
(John  xvi.  14).  Moreover,  the  Holy 
Spirit  **  shall  not  speak  from  himself ; 
but  whatsoever  things  he  shall  hear, 
these  shall  he  speak "  (John  xvi.  13). 
As  the  Son  on  earth  spoke  for  the 
Father,  so  the  Holy  Spirit  would  speak 
from  the  Father  and  reveal  the  Son  to 
men.  The  Son  came  to  manifest  the 
Father  to  the  world  in  himself.  The 
Spirit  would  come  to  reveal  to  men 
the  Son  and  thus  the  Father.  As  the 
Son  glorified  the  Father,  so  the  Spirit 
would    glorify    the    Son.     As    the    Son 


78  God  the  Father 

owed  his  birth  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  so 
men  would  become  children  of  God  by 
the  Spirit,  though  to  be  sure  in  a  differ- 
ent sense  than  is  true  of  Jesus.  We 
despair  of  any  effort  to  put  in  intelligible 
form  the  basal  and  eternal  facts  of  the 
glorious  Trinity,  but  none  the  less  we 
reverently  and  joyfully  accept  God  as  re- 
vealed by  Christ  as  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 
This  is  more  than  an  economic  or  a 
metaphysical  Trinity.  But  we  do  not 
have  three  separate  Gods.  Christianity 
is  not  polytheistic.  Electricity  is  light, 
heat,  and  power.  Radium  bids  us  all  to 
be  slow  to  say  dogmatically  what  cannot 
be  true  in  the  realm  of  the  eternal. 

Blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit  is  Blas- 
phemy against  God 

Jesus  would  not  brook  an  insult  to  his 
Father  nor  to  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
Pharisees  were  not  able  to  deny  the  real- 
ity of  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  but  in  des- 
peration they  attributed  them  to  Satan, 


The  Holy  Spirit  79 

accusing  Jesus  of  being  in  league  with 
the  devil.     They  hoped  thus  to  offset  the 
effect  of  his  works.     But  Jesus  boldly 
claimed   to  work  them  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  (Matt.  xii.  28),  and  accused  them 
of   blasphemy  against   the    Holy  Spirit, 
which  sin  is  eternal  and  has  no  forgive- 
ness (Mark  iii.  29  f.).     In  fact  Jesus  held 
blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be 
worse  than   blasphemy  against  the  Son : 
**And   whosoever    shall    speak    a   word 
against  the  Son,  it  shall  be  forgiven  him  ; 
but  whosoever   shall    speak   against  the 
Holy  Spirit,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him  " 
(Matt.  xii.  32).     This  is  true  not  because 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  greater  than  the  Son, 
but  because  there  was  less  excuse  for  it. 
The   Son  of  man  was  in  human  form, 
and  perhaps   more   excuse  was   possible 
when  he  was  treated  as  a  mere  man.     But 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  not  man  at  all,  but 
God  alone,  and  the  works  thus  manifestly 
wrought  by  the  Spirit  of  God  were  dia- 
bolically attributed  to  Satan.     It  was  the 


8o  God  the  Father 

climax  of  malevolence,  when  the  very 
works  of  God,  and  plain  works  of  God, 
were  credited  to  the  power  of  Satan. 
This  is  indeed  a  Use  majeste  in  the  high- 
est sense  of  that  term.  The  full  deity 
and  the  real  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
are  implied  in  the  teaching  of  Christ  con- 
cerning the  unpardonable  sin.  It  is  not 
hard  to  see  the  justice  of  this  hard  pen- 
alty. The  depth  of  the  iniquity  of  the 
Pharisees  is  thus  apprehended  against 
whom  Jesus  later  let  loose  the  vials  of 
his  just  wrath  (Matt,  xxiii.). 

The  Promise  of  the    Father    to   Send  the 
Spirit 

We  are  not  to  think  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  not  in  the  world  at  all  before 
the  day  of  Christ.  No  more  are  we  to 
say  that  God  had  no  kingdom  on  earth 
before  John  the  Baptist  proclaimed  the 
advent  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  a 
new  sense  the  kingdom  came  with  the 
coming  of  Christ,  as  in  a  new  sense  it  will 


The  Holy  Spirit  8i 

be  fully  come  when  Christ  comes  again 
to  claim  his  own.  So  in  a  new  and 
richer  sense  the  Holy  Spirit  was  to  come 
when  Jesus  went  back  to  the  Father, 
although  before  that  day  Jesus  had  said 
that  the  heavenly  Father  would  '*  give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him  " 
(Luke  xi.  13).  He  had  also  previously 
spoken  of  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  ''rivers  of  living  water"  "which  they 
that  believed  on  him  were  to  receive" 
(John  vii.  39  f.).  John  adds  this  also : 
**  For  the  Spirit  was  not  yet  given,"  re- 
ferring to  the  day  of  Pentecost.  He 
wrote  at  the  close  of  the  century  and  was 
looking  back  to  the  great  day  when  the 
Spirit  of  God  began  a  new  era  in  Chris- 
tianity. 

To  the  distressed  disciples  Jesus  prom- 
ised a  Comforter  who  should  be  with 
them  when  he  was  gone  :  *'  And  I  will 
pray  the  Father,  and  he  shall  give  you 
another  Comforter,  that  he  may  be  with 
you  forever  "  (John  xiv.   16).     In   fact, 


82  God  the  Father 

said  Jesus,  **  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Com- 
forter will  not  come  unto  you  "  (John 
xvi.7),  ''but,"  he  adds,  ''if  I  go,  I  will 
send  him  unto  you,"  thus  identifying  his 
work  with  that  of  the  Father. 

At  Jerusalem  before  the  ascension, 
Jesus  repeated  the  promise  of  the  Father 
in  specific  terms :  "  And  behold  I  send 
forth  the  promise  of  the  Father  upon 
you"  (Luke  xxiv.  49),  adding:  "Ye 
shall  receive  power,  when  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  come  upon  you  "  (Acts  i.  8). 
Clearly  then  the  Holy  Spirit  was  to  take 
up  the  work  of  the  Son  and  to  carry  it 
on  to  the  end.  But  we  are  not  to  think 
of  a  merely  absentee  Christ  who  has 
withdrawn  to  the  glory  of  heaven.  He 
is  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father  as  our 
High  Priest,  Advocate,  and  Elder 
Brother,  who  pleads  our  cause  on  high 
with  the  Father  while  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
Christ's  advocate  on  earth  with  men. 
Indeed  through  the  Holy  Spirit  Jesus  is 
with  us  "  always,  even  unto  the  end  of 


The  Holy  Spirit  83 

the  world  "  (Matt,  xxviii.  20).  So  then 
all  three  Persons  of  the  Trinity  are  ac- 
tively engaged  in  the  work  of  redemp- 
tion. 

It  is  possible  in  a  general  way  to  speak 
of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  as 
that  of  God  the  Father,  the  dispensation 
in  the  Gospels  as  that  of  Jesus  the  Son 
of  God  and  the  Son  of  man,  and  the 
apostolic  dispensation  as  that  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  But  this  can  be  said  only  by  way 
of  accent ,  not  of  separate  work.  For 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  ignored  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  coming  of  the  Mes- 
siah is  the  one  great  hope  that  lights  up 
the  Old  Testament  times.  In  the  min- 
istry of  Jesus  the  supreme  fact  is  the  full 
revelation  of  God  the  Father  in  the  Son 
while  he  himself  is  in  constant  com- 
munion with  the  Spirit.  When  the  Son 
returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  in  control  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  on  earth,  and  yet  the  chief 
work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  make  effec- 


84  God  tJie  Father 

tive  the  work  of  the  Son  on  the  basis  of 
whose  atoning  death  it  is  possible  for 
men  to  come  back  to  God  the  Father. 
The  Spirit,  then,  is  the  Father's  ever- 
present  Messenger  who  convicts  *'  the 
world  in  respect  of  sin,  and  of  righteous- 
ness, and  of  judgment"  (John  xvi.  8). 
The  Spirit's  unutterable  groanings  in  our 
hearts  are  understood  by  the  Father  who 
listens  for  the  cry  of  his  helpless  chil- 
dren (Rom.  viii.  26  f.). 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Relation  of  God  to  His  World. 

"As  thou  didst   send  me  into  the  world,  even  so   sent    I 
them  into  the  world  "  (John  xvii.  i8). 

T  T7^^  have  no  formal  discussion  of 
1^1^  cosmological  theories  by  Jesus 
nor  does  he  use  technical 
phrases  about  this  theme.  In  this  as  in 
all  things  Jesus  uses  the  language  of  life 
and  not  the  systematized  expressions  of 
the  schools. 

The  World  View  of  Jesus 

It  need  not,  however,  be  assumed  that 
Jesus  did  not  have  a  w^orld  view,  a  welt- 

85 


86  God  the  Father 

anschauung.  Jesus  had  a  world  view, 
but  used  the  term  in  a  variety  of  senses. 
He  felt  himself  apart  from  "  this  world" 
and  came  *'for  judgment"  into  it  (John 
ix.  39).  I  am  come  a  light  into  the 
world  "  (John  xii.  46).  He  even  said  : 
"  I  am  the  light  of  the  world  "  (John  viii. 
12).  His  primary  object  in  coming  is 
not  simply  to  judge,  '*  but  to  save  the 
world "  (John  xii.  47).  Clearly  then 
Jesus  had  a  world  outlook.  He  took 
the  world  upon  his  heart  in  a  large  way 
and  did  not  have  a  limited  world  range. 
Satan  offered  him  in  subtle  temptation 
"all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  them  "  (Matt.  iv.  8),  the  goal  of 
Alexander's  ambition,  of  the  Caesars,  of 
Napoleon.  We  may  not,  then,  dismiss 
what  Christ  has  to  say  on  this  subject 
with  the  idea  that  Jesus  was  merely  a 
narrow  provincial  of  Judea  who  had  no 
world  ideas  of  importance. 

VVe  must  remember  that  his  favorite 
title  for  himself  was  "  The  Son  of  man," 


God  and  His  PVorld  87 

by  which  he  meant  not  merely  a  man, 
but  the  representative  man,  the  son  of 
the  race  who  gathered  up  in  himself  the 
ideals  and  hopes  of  the  best  in  the  world, 
the  man  who  was  such  as  God  meant 
him  to  be.  As  Son  of  man  and  Son  of 
God  Jesus  had  the  largest  and  the  truest 
outlook  on  the  world  of  any  man  who 
has  ever  lived.  He  can  tell  us  what  God 
the  Father  thinks  of  the  world  and  how 
men  should  regard  it.  *'  The  things 
which  I  heard  from  him,  these  speak  I 
unto  the  world "  (John  viii.  27).  The 
words  of  John  reinforce,  if  need  be,  this 
claim  of  Jesus,  for  "  all  things  were  made 
by  him  ;  and  without  him  was  not  any- 
thing made  "  (John  i.  3).  *'  He  was  in 
the  world,  and  the  world  was  made  by 
him,  and  the  world  knew  him  not" 
(John  i.  10).  It  is  presumptuous,  then, 
to  say  the  least,  to  posit  ignorance  of  the 
world  by  Christ,  the  Creator  of  the 
world.  How  much  in  his  human  state 
Jesus  condescended  not  to  know,  or  did 


88  God  the  Father 

not  know,  since  he  grew  in  knowledge, 
we  do  not  understand.  But  certainly  we 
cannot  limit  his  knowledge  of  the  world 
as  that  of  a  mere  man  of  the  first  century 
in  Judea. 

The  Senses   in  Which  the  Term   World  is 
Used  by  Jesus 

It  is  in  the  Gospel  of  John  that  we 
find  the  word  *'  world "  used  so  much. 
In  Mark  and  Luke  each  it  occurs  three 
times  only  and  but  nine  times  in  Mat- 
thew. In  John  we  have  it  78  times  and 
only  184  in  all  the  rest  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. How  is  it  used  ?  The  usual 
word  for  world  as  used  by  Jesus  is  cosmos. 
Twice  only  does  he  use  the  word  oikou- 
mene,  the  inhabited  earth,  and  both  of 
these  are  in  the  discourse  on  the  Mount 
of  Olives  concerning  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  Second  Coming 
(Matt.  xxiv.  14;  Luke  xxi.  26).  Here 
the  world  is  the  earth  as  the  habitation 
of  men.     Cosmos  meant  originally  orderly 


God  and  His  IVorld         89 

arrangement,  then  ornament  as  in  1  Pet. 
iii.  3,  *'  the  outward  adorning  of  braiding 
the  hair."  It  was  natural  for  this  word 
to  be  applied  to  the  orderly  and  orna- 
mental arrangement  of  the  universe.  So 
Jesus  speaks  of  the  glory  which  he  had 
with  the  Father  "  before  the  world  was  " 
(John  xvii.  5),  where  he  uses  it  for  the 
universe  itself.  The  word  is  also  used 
by  Jesus  for  the  earth  simply  when  he 
says :  **  If  a  man  walk  in  the  day,  he 
stumbleth  not,  because  he  seeth  the  light 
of  this  world  "  (John  xi.  9),  again :  **  I 
am  no  more  in  the  world "  (John  xvii. 
11).  Then  also  we  find  the  Master  using 
the  term  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth, 
as  when  he  said :  ''  I  came  out  from  the 
Father,  and  am  come  into  the  world " 
(John  xvi.  28).  So  also :  **  The  field  is 
the  world"  (Matt.  xiii.  38). 

Besides  Jesus  spoke  of  the  world  as  sin- 
ful and  different  from  his  disciples  :  **  If 
ye  were  of  the  world,  the  world  would 
love  its  own,  but  because  ye  are  not  of  the 


90  God  the  Father 

world,  but  I  chose  you  out  of  the  world, 
therefore  the  world  hateth  you  "  (John 
XV.  19).  Again  Christ  conceived  of  this 
world  as  distinct  from  the  world  to  come : 
**  Ye  are  from  beneath ;  I  am  from  above ; 
ye  are  of  this  world  ;  I  am  not  of  this 
world  "  (John  viii.  23).  Thus  he  spoke 
to  his  enemies  after  the  feast  of  taber- 
nacles. To  Pontius  Pilate  Jesus  said 
simply :  *'  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world "  (John  xviii.  36).  Clearly  then 
the  term  had  a  varied  content  in  the 
mind  of  Christ.  He  had  a  world  con- 
sciousness and  knew  that  he  had  entered 
upon  a  world  conflict  and  was  to  win  a 
world  conquest. 

God  the  Author  of  the  Universe 

With  Jesus  the  world  had  a  **  begin- 
ning "  (Matt.  xxiv.  21)  and  so  is  not  eter- 
nal. He  will  say  at  the  judgment : 
**  Come  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit 
the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  "  (Matt.  xxv.  34). 


God  and  His  World         91  ; 

There  was   a  time  when  he  had  glory  | 
**  before  the  world  was  "  (John  xvii.  5).  1 
Moreover,  the   world  will  have  an  end 
(Matt,     xxviii.    20),    though    here    an- 
other word  [aion)  is  used  which  means  j 
age.     Jesus  speaks  of  Satan  as  the  prince 
of  this  world,   but  he  will  be    cast  out  j 
(John    xii.  31).     He   by  no   means   ac- 
knowledges Satan  as  the  creator  or  right- 
ful master  of  the  world.     He  is  distinctly 
a    usurper    who    will    be    displaced  by 
Christ.     Jesus  does  not  in  so  many  words  \ 
say  that    God  created  the  universe,  but 
that  is  the  whole  implication  of  what  he  , 
does  say  in  the  passages  already  quoted.  i 
His  idea  is  evidently  the  same  as  that  of  j 
John  who  speaks  of  the  world  as  being  j 
created  by  the  Logos  (Christ)  who  is  the  \ 
Son  of  God  (John  i.   10).     The  Father  ! 
is    the    ultimate    creator    and    the    Son  I 
wrought  the  Father's  will.     Jesus  called  ,: 
himself  **  the  light  of  the  world  "  (John  \ 
vii.  12),  but  was  doubtless  here  speaking  | 
of  moral  and  spiritual  light,  though  he  is  ' 


92  God  the  Father 

in  fact  the  force  that  holds  the  universe 
together  as  Paul  shows  (Col.  i.  17).  He 
is  indeed  the  life  of  the  world  (Johnvi. 
33  ;  xi.  25)  in  every  sense  of  that  term. 
It  is  not  possible  to  reconcile  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  about  the  Father's  relation 
to  the  world  with  materialism  in  any 
form.  Naturalistic  evolution  is  repug- 
nant to  the  fundamental  conceptions  of 
Jesus.  So  is  every  theory  that  postulates 
the  eternity  of  matter. 

Hence  God  is  More  than  the  Universe 

The  immanence  of  God  as  Father  and 
as  Son  is  implicit  in  many  of  the  sayings 
of  Jesus.  There  is  no  divorce  between 
God  and  his  world.  When  Jesus  calls 
himself  the  light  and  the  life  of  the  world, 
he  is  doubtless  thinking  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  life  of  men.  This  is  the 
main  thing.  God  himself  is  spirit  and 
our  immortal  souls  are  our  main  con- 
cern. ''  For  what  doth  it  profit  a  man, 
to  gain  the  whole  world,  and  forfeit  his 


God  and  His  World         93 

life  ?  "  (Mark  viii.  36).  But  Jesus  spoke 
also  to  the  winds  and  the  waves  and  they 
obeyed  his  will  (Mark  iv.  41).  Jesus 
does  not  think  it  incongruous  for  the 
divine  will  to  be  exercised  on  inanimate 
nature.  The  loaves  and  fishes  alike  re- 
spond to  his  call  and  thus  testify  to  the 
immanent  power  of  God  (Mark  vi.  41). 

But  if  God  is  present  in  his  world,  he 
is  more  than  his  world.  The  world  is 
not  God  in  any  sense  of  the  term, 
whether  the  universe,  the  earth,  the 
people,  or  moral  evil  in  the  world.  This 
last  certainly  was  other  than  God  and  is 
due  to  the  devil  who  is  under  suffer- 
ance in  the  world  and  whose  dark  mys- 
terious existence  and  power  over  men 
Jesus  does  not  explain,  though  he  freely 
recognizes  his  baleful  influence.  But 
when  Jesus  says  God  is  spirit  (John  iv.  24) 
he  pointedly  denies  that  the  material  uni- 
verse is  God  or  a  part  of  God,  thus  re- 
jecting pantheism  and  monism.  What  is 
true  of  the  whole  is  true  of  the  parts,  and 


94  God  the  Father 

so  neither  the  earth  nor  humanity  can 
be  God.  God  is  a  Spirit  and  a  Person 
who  has  supreme  power  over  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  his  world  for  he  made  it. 
It  is  the  expression  of  his  will,  but  there 
is  a  difference  between  subject  and  ob- 
ject. The  creative  activity  of  the  Father 
is  continuous.  He  has  not  tied  himself 
up  in  his  own  laws,  but  exerts  a  con- 
stant control  in  nature.  **  My  Father 
worketh  even  until  now,  and  I  work  " 
(John  V.  17). 

God  has  life  in  himself  and  has  given 
the  Son  to  have  life  in  himself  (John  v. 
26).  Spontaneous  generation  is  a  futile 
theory,  for  life  is  in  God.  It  is  not 
strange  then  that  the  greatest  modern 
scientists,  even  those  who  are  not  Chris- 
tians or  even  theists  as  Spencer  and  Hux- 
ley, frankly  confess  their  ignorance  of 
the  mystery  of  life.  Life  cannot  be  put 
under  the  microscope.  It  is  not  a  chem- 
ical process  nor  a  part  of  a  cell  tissue. 
Life  is  in  God.     God  alone  gives  life  as 


God  and  His  World         95 

he  wills.  Life  works  the  cells  and  builds 
the  marvellous  structures  in  the  physical 
world.  But  Hfe  will  never  be  shown  to 
be  a  mere  mechanical  process.  Not  even 
radium  is  life  as  some  excited  materialists 
are  saying.     God  is  life. 

God  Loves  the  World 

God  does  not  acknowledge  the  devil's 
claim  to  ownership  of  the  world.  There 
is  evil,  terrible  evil  in  the  world.  It  was 
a  good  world  when  God  made  it.  It  is 
a  marred  and  ruined  world  now,  but 
none  the  less  God  loves  it.  His  pity 
towards  it  is  all  the  greater  because  of 
the  evil  wrought  in  it.  God  does  not 
view  with  unconcern  the  moral  situation 
in  the  world.  If  Jesus  did  not  himself 
speak  the  words  recorded  in  John  iii. 
16,  as  possibly  he  did  not,  they  at  any 
rate  fully  express  his  revelation  of  the 
Father's  attitude  toward  the  world : 
**  For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whoso- 


96  God  the  Father 

ever  believeth  on  him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  eternal  life."  God  does  not 
wish  the  world  to  perish,  nor  any  part  of 
it.  "  For  God,"  the  passage  (John  iii.  17) 
continues,  **  sent  not  the  Son  into  the 
world  to  condemn  the  world  ;  but  that 
the  world  should  be  saved  through 
him." 

The  Father  has  indeed  "  given  all 
judgment  unto  the  Son"  (John  v.  22), 
but  the  Father  prefers  that  in  every  case 
the  Son  shall  bring  salvation  rather  than 
condemnation.  "  For  I  came  not  to 
judge  the  world,  but  to  save  the  world  " 
(John  xii.  47).  '*To  save  the  world." 
That  is  the  profoundest  philosophy  of 
Christianity  as  expounded  by  the  author 
of  the  gospel.  The  Father  wished  to 
bring  back  to  himself  a  world  that  had 
wandered  away  from  him.  This  is  the 
tragedy  of  the  universe.  This  is  the  story 
of  divine  love  that  dwarfs  into  littleness 
all  others.  The  Father  gave  his  only  be- 
gotten son  for  a  world  that  had  learned  to 


God  and  His  IVorld         97 

hate  its  Creator,  that  had  spurned  a 
Father's  love,  and  that  refused  to  come 
back  home  and  be  reconciled.  To  bring 
harmony  into  the  universe  again,  to  save 
the  lost,  the  Son  gave  his  own  life  a  ran- 
som on  the  cross,  a  victim  to  the  hate  of 
the  world  for  which  he  died.  This  cruel 
death  was  necessary  as  a  basis  for  the 
atoning  work  of  the  Son  and  to  make  it 
possible  for  the  Father  to  save  those  that 
believe.  But  it  is  none  the  less  the  cli- 
max of  human  sin. 

The  attitude  of  the  Father  towards 
publicans  and  sinners  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  self-righteous  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
on  the  other  is  set  forth  in  a  matchless 
manner  in  the  great  parable  of  the  Prod- 
igal Son  (Luke  xv.  11-32).  We  shall 
need  to  come  back  to  this  parable  again 
under  another  point  of  view.  But  here 
let  us  see  the  Father's  desire  that  both 
the  elder  and  the  younger  sons  should 
dwell  in  his  house.  He  did  not  drive 
the  younger  away  nor  did  he  make  him 


98  God  the  Father 

come  back,  but,  O,  what  a  welcome  he 
gave  him  when  he  did  come  back  with 
a  repentant  heart.  He  did  not  make  the 
elder  brother  sulk  in  the  fields,  but  he 
would  not  drive  away  the  lost  son  now 
found  again,  not  even  to  please  the  elder 
brother.  The  heart  of  God  yearns  for 
the  world  to  be  his.  For  this  purpose 
Christ  sent  the  disciples  on  their  world- 
wide mission  (Matt,  xxviii.  19).  The 
conquest  of  the  world,  no  more  no  less, 
is  the  goal  of  Christianity,  the  furthest 
reach  of  the  Father's  love. 

But  His  Kingdom  is  not  of  This  World 

If  it  were,  there  would  be  no  need  of 
it  and  no  room  for  it.  If  Christianity  is 
**  other-worldliness, "  that  is  precisely  the 
thing  most  needed  for  the  world.  The 
world's  hunger  is  for  something  other 
than  itself,  something  to  make  it  better 
than  it  is.  No  world-originated  system 
could  or  can  make  the  world  better  than 
the  world.    Hell  was  tugging  at  the  world 


God  and  His  World         99 

to  pull  it  down  and  was  already  victor. 
The  only  hope  was  from  above.  The 
constant  claim  of  Jesus  was  :  "  I  am  from 
above  "  (John  viii.  23).  The  kingdom 
that  he  set  up  was  not  of  this  world 
(John  xviii.  36),  was  prepared  for  them 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world 
(Matt.  XXV.  34),  was  an  invisible  king- 
dom in  the  heart  (Luke  xvii.  20  f.),  and 
was  to  win.  **  I  have  overcome  the 
world  "  (John  xvi.  33),  Jesus  said.  He 
spoke  as  a  Conqueror  and  he  is  still  con- 
quering. *'  In  the  world  ye  have  tribu- 
lation ;  but  be  of  good  cheer  "  (John  xvi. 
33).  The  day  will  come  when  **  the 
kingdom  of  the  world  is  become  the 
kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ  " 
(Rev.  xi.  15).  Till  then  God  is  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  to  himself.  We 
are  the  messengers  of  God  and  Christ 
to  speed  the  message,  to  further  the  mis- 
sion of  Christ  to  the  world,  to  win  the 
world  to  Christ,  for  he  alone  can  bless 
and  save  a  world  lost  in  sin. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Relation  of  God  to  the  Unsaved, 

"  For  the  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which 
was  lost"  (Luke  xix.   lo). 

/i  RE  the  wicked  children  of  God  ? 
y~l  That  depends  upon  what  one 
means  by  the  term  ''  children  of 
God."  Is  God  the  Father  of  the  un- 
saved ?  That  likewise  depends  on  the 
idea  in  the  term  **  Father."  As  in  most 
controversies,  the  terms  need  definition 
if  we  are  to  proceed  intelligently  in  the 
apprehension  of  the  relation  of  God  to 
the  unsaved.  The  expression  **  universal 
fatherhood  of  God  "  has  become  a  party 

ICO 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved     loi 

shibboleth  to  some  extent  in  our  day. 
Not  always  do  the  persons  who  use  it 
understand  each  other.  The  Universal- 
ists  mean  that  all  men  are  indeed  the  spir- 
itual children  of  God  and  will  be  mem- 
bers of  the  family  of  God  in  heaven. 
Those  who  hold  the  other  extreme  deny 
that  any  are  in  any  sense  the  children  of 
God  save  those  who  are  born  again  into 
the  family  of  God  by  the  renewal  of 
heart  through  the  Holy  Spirit. 

W^e  were  Created  in  the  Image  of  God 

This  early  statement  in  Genesis  is  ac- 
cepted by  all  as  an  accurate  statement  of 
man's  original  spiritual  condition  except 
it  be  anti-Christian  evolutionists  who  deny 
the  spiritual  kinship  to  God.  The  orig- 
inal likeness  to  God  is  in  the  spirit,  not 
in  the  body  which  is  of  the  earth.  But 
on  the  physical  side  we  are  the  children 
of  God  in  the  sense  that  he  is  the  Creator 
of  all  things.  But  clearly  more  than  this 
is  involved  in  the  image  of  God  which 


I02  God  the  Father 

was  stamped  in  our  souls.  God  has  re- 
lations to  men  that  he  does  not  have  to 
the  beasts  of  the  field. 

Alienation  from  God 

The  background  of  the  life  and  work 
of  Christ  is  just  this.  The  world  had 
gone  away  from  God.  The  world  was 
lost.  Something  had  come  in  to  break 
the  previous  relation  to  God.  No  longer 
are  men,  save  an  elect  few,  on  terms  of 
fellowship  with  God.  They  are  out- 
casts from  the  family  of  God,  aliens  from 
the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  without 
God,  in  fact  hostile  towards  God.  If  such 
men  are  still  children  of  God,  they  are  dis- 
obedient children  who  have  rebelled 
against  the  Father,  who  have  left  home, 
and  who  have  gone  over  to  the  enemy 
of  the  Father.  They  have  caused  them- 
selves to  be  disinherited,  have  sold  their 
birthright,  and  have  refused  all  overtures 
to  return  to  the  Father's  love  and  home. 
This  in  fact  seems  to  be  the  conception 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved      103 

of  the  unsaved  that  underlies  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  Hence  it  is  that  not  all 
who  hear  the  glad  news  of  salvation  will 
be  saved.  They  are  in  the  enemy's 
country  and  will  not  give  up  their  new 
pleasures  for  what  they  have  left  and 
may  get  by  returning.  When  the  seed 
is  sown,  the  soil  may  be  very  hard  and 
beaten,  or  stony,  or  thorny.  Or  perhaps 
the  tares  grow  right  in  the  midst  of  the 
wheat.  '*  The  good  seed,  then,  are  the 
sons  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  the  tares  the 
sons  of  the  evil  one  "  (Matt.  xiii.  38  f.). 
Here  ''good"  is  not  good  by  nature, 
but  by  virtue  of  the  choice  to  become 
sons  of  the  kingdom. 

The  Condemfiation  of  the  Father 

The  unsaved  are  under  the  displeasure 
of  the  Father.  If  John  the  Baptist  called 
the  Pharisees  ''offspring  of  vipers"  (Matt. 
iii.  7),  so  did  Jesus  :  "  Ye  offspring  of 
vipers,  how  can  ye,  being  evil,  speak 
good  things  ? "  (Matt.  xii.  34).     This  was 


I04  God  the  Father 

at  the  time  of  the  blasphemous  accusa- 
tion. But  at  the  close  of  the  terrible  de- 
nunciation on  the  last  day  in  the  temple, 
when  Christ  let  loose  the  pent  up  indig- 
nation of  the  years,  he  said  :  **  Ye  ser- 
pents, ye  offspring  of  vipers,  how  shall 
ye  escape  the  judgment  of  hell  ?  "  (Matt. 
xxiii.  33).  He  had  poured  vials  of  wrath 
against  these  consummate  hypocrites  who 
juggled  with  the  consciences  of  men  and 
the  teachings  of  God  and  made  their 
proselytes  twofold  more  sons  of  hell  than 
they  were  themselves  (Matt.  xxii.  15). 

Certainly  there  was  unusual  provoca- 
tion to  have  called  forth  such  denuncia- 
tion from  the  gentle  Christ  who  was  a 
volcano  only  to  the  enemies  of  God  his 
Father.  And  yet  the  fact  that  Jesus 
could  with  justice  so  characterize  these 
men  makes  it  impossible  to  think  of  them 
as  actually  belonging  to  the  family  of 
God.  They  can  only  be  called  renegade 
children.  They  had  accused  Jesus  of 
being  in  league  with  Satan  and  thus  hav- 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved     105 

ing  power  to  cast  out  demons,  when  in 
fact  they  were  themselves  guilty  of  the 
unpardonable  sin  in  thus  attributing  the 
manifest  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the 
devil  (Matt.  xii.  31  f.).  They  are  "guilty 
of  an  eternal  sin  "  (Mark  iii.  29).  Again 
in  a  strenuous  controversy  with  the 
Pharisees  in  Jerusalem  at  the  feast  of  tab- 
ernacles six  months  before  his  death, 
Jesus  expressly  denied  that  they  were 
the  children  of  God,  and  said  in  plain 
terms  that  they  were  children  of  the 
devil.  **  If  God  were  your  Father,  ye 
would  love  me"  (John  viii.  42).  **Ye 
are  of  your  father,  the  devil,  and  the 
lusts  of  your  father  it  is  your  will  to  do  " 
(John  viii.  44).  They  were  the  literal 
descendants  of  Abraham,  but  were  not 
the  spiritual  children  of  Abraham  (John 
viii.  39).  So  then  God  had  created 
them  ;  but  they  now  belonged  to  the 
family  of  the  devil. 

Judas  is  repeatedly  said  to   belong  to 
the  devil  (as  John  vi.  70).     The  poor  de- 


io6  God  the  Father 

moniacs  were  wholly  under  the  power 
of  demons,  the  agents  of  Satan.  It  is 
not  possible  to  deny  successfully  the  re- 
ality of  the  demoniacal  possessions  and 
maintain  the  spiritual  supremacy  of 
Christ.  The  efforts  to  do  so  are  all  futile. 
But,  it  may  be  replied,  these  are  ex- 
ceptional cases.  They  are  specimens  of 
the  worst  elements  in  society  from  the 
spiritual  point  of  view.  It  yet  remains 
to  show  that  the  bulk  of  the  unsaved  are 
not  in  the  family  of  God.  Jesus  had 
pointedly  said  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  that,  unless  the  righteousness  of 
the  people  exceeded  that  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  they  should  not  enter  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  (Matt.  v.  20).  Later 
he  accused  the  Pharisees  of  making  void 
the  word  of  God  because  of  their  tradi- 
tion (Matt.  XV.  6).  But  Jesus  made  a 
much  broader  statement  when  he  said  to 
the  Galilean  throng  in  the  synagogue  at 
Capernaum  :  "  No  man  can  come  to  me 
except  the  Father  which  sent  me  draw 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved     107 

him  "  (John  vi.  44).  This  he  said  when 
he  was  explaining  to  the  unspiritual  pop- 
ulace that  he  was  a  spiritual  Messiah. 
This  announcement  helped  to  break  the 
charm  of  his  power  over  them.  If  that 
was  the  kind  of  Messiah  that  he  claimed 
to  be,  and  not  a  great  Jewish  king,  they 
wished  none  of  him.  But  the  whole 
passage  serves  to  show  the  distance  from 
God  and  Christ  at  which  the  unspiritual 
multitude  dwells.  It  is  not  merely  the 
leaders  who  are  away  from  the  Father, 
but  the  people  as  well.  *' Ye  have  seen 
me,  and  yet  believe  not "  (John  vi.  36). 
More  than  all  this,  the  impulse  to  come 
to  Christ  comes  from  the  Father.  It  is 
a  hopeless  situation  out  of  Christ,  what 
Paul  calls  ''dead  in  trespasses  and  sins." 
Christ  even  speaks  of  "  this  evil  genera- 
tion "  (Matt.  xii.  45).  Christ  is  himself 
the  test  of  character  and  the  door  to  eter- 
nal life.  *'  No  one  cometh  unto  the 
Father,  but  by  me  "  (John  xiv.  6).  All 
who  do  not   thus  **  come "  by   him  are 


io8  God  the  Father 

lost.  "  He  that  believeth  not  has  been 
judged  already "  (John  iii.  18).  If  this 
last  passage  is  the  teaching  of  the  evan- 
gelist only,  it  is  certainly  in  harmony 
with  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  unsaved. 

Hell  and  Eternal  Punishment 

Jesus  taught  that  the  wicked  would 
spend  eternity  in  hell  in  the  outer  dark- 
ness away  from  the  presence  of  the 
Father.  **The  outer  darkness"  (Matt, 
viii.  12  ;  xxii.  13  ;  xxv.  30)  is  one  of  the 
most  vivid  descriptions  of  the  state  of 
the  lost  used  by  the  Master.  They  are 
away  from  God  who  is  light,  away  from 
the  company  of  the  redeemed.  Another 
picture  is  presented  under  the  image  of 
the  undying  worm  :  "  where  their  worm 
dieth  not"  (Mark  ix.  48).  Hades  does 
not  mean  place  of  torment  itself,  but 
merely  the  unseen  world ;  yet  in  Luke 
xvi.  23  it  is  used  evidently  for  that  part 
of  the  unseen  world  where  torment  is. 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved     109 

for  the  wicked  rich  man  in  Hades  **  lifted 
up  his  eyes,  being  in  torments."  This 
is  not  a  temporary  state  for**  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed  "  (Luke  xvi.  26)  between 
the  wicked  rich  man  and  Lazarus.  This 
is  a  parable,  but  it  correctly  represents 
Christ's  idea  of  the  fate  of  the  wicked. 
Moreover,  Jesus  often  expressly  uses  the 
term  Gehenna  for  the  place  of  the  lost. 
It  is  not  simply  "  the  hell  of  fire  "  (Matt. 
V.  22),  but  the  place  where  the  soul  and 
body  of  the  wicked  are  sent  by  God  the 
Father  (Matt.  x.  28).  It  is  impossible 
for  the  Pharisees  whom  Jesus  denounc- 
ed to  escape  Gehenna  (Matt,  xxiii.  33). 
These  are  terrible  pictures  of  a  place  and 
state  of  eternal  punishment.  Certainly 
they  do  not  have  to  be  taken  literally 
any  more  than  the  picture  of  heaven  as 
a  city  with  streets  and  river.  But  the 
figure  in  both  cases  falls  short  of  the 
reality.  Each  man  makes  a  hell  for  him- 
self in  the  memory  of  his  sin  and  the 
lashing  of  his  conscience.     The  law  of 


no  God  the  Father 

heredity  reinforces  the  teaching  about 
hell.  If  there  is  eternal  progress  in  holi- 
ness, there  is  also  eternal  progress  in  evil. 
We  must  not  let  sentimental  notions 
about  the  fatherhood  of  God  destroy  the 
real  teaching  of  Christ  about  the  Father. 
Jesus  himself  called  the  wicked  **  lost " 
(Luke  xix.  10).  At  the  judgment  day  he 
will  say :  **  Depart  from  me,  ye^  cursed, 
into  the  eternal  fire  which  is  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels  "  (Matt.  xxv.  41). 
This  awful  doom  is  solemnly  repeated  in 
measured  words  at  the  close  of  the  same 
discourse  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  :  "'  And 
these  shall  go  away  into  eternal  punish- 
ment :  but  the  righteous  into  eternal  life  " 
(Matt.  xxv.  46).  It  is  useless  to  seek  to 
whittle  away  the  meaning  of ''eternal " 
with  ""  punishment."  It  is  the  very  word 
that  is  used  with  *'  life."  The  arguments 
that  will  disprove  the  eternity  of  the 
**  fire  "  and  the  ''  punishment  "  will  like- 
wise destroy  the  eternity  of  the  '*hfe. " 
They  stand  or  fall  together.     Hence  we 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved      1 1 1 

are  not  to  say  that  God  is  the  Father  of 
all  men  in  the  sense  that  he  will  not 
punish  unforgiven  sin.  To  say  that  is 
not  only  to  contradict  the  plain  teach- 
ing of  Christ  on  the  subject,  but  is  also 
to  have  an  inadequate  conception  of  sin, 
God's  view  of  sin,  and  God's  own  nature. 

God  Seeking  his  Lost  Children 

But  least  of  all  should  we  attribute 
malice  to  the  Father  in  the  punishment 
of  the  unsaved.  Jesus  not  only  taught 
us  to  pray  for  our  enemies,  but  he  did 
so  himself  as  he  hung  on  the  cross  (ac- 
cording to  what  is  probably  the  correct 
text  in  Luke  xxiii.  34) :  "  Father,  forgive 
them  ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 
The  three  immortal  parables  in  the  fif- 
teenth chapter  of  Luke  show  us  the 
yearning  love  of  the  Father  for  the  lost. 
If  the  shepherd  goes  after  the  one  lost 
sheep,  so  the  Father  has  sent  his  Son  to 
save  the  publicans  and  sinners.  And 
there  is  joy  in  heaven  when   the  lost  is 


1 1 2  God  the  Father 

found.  If  the  woman  searches  for  the 
lost  piece  of  money  and  rejoices  when 
she  finds  it,  so  there  is  joy  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sin- 
ner that  repenteth.  But  this  is  not  all. 
If  the  prodigal  son,  after  wandering  in 
sin,  repents  and  comes  back  with  humble 
confession  on  his  lips,  he  finds  the 
Father  watching  for  him.  **  For  this 
my  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again ; 
he  was  lost,  and  is  found  "  (Luke  xv.  24). 
That  is  it.  The  lost  children  are  dead 
children,  dead  to  the  influence  of  the 
Father's  love,  and  have  lost  connection 
with  him.  This  is  precisely  the  work  of 
Christ,  to  bring  to  life  again  the  dead  chil- 
dren, to  find  the  lost  sons  and  daughters, 
and  bring  them  home  again  (John  v.  25). 

Reconciliation  Possible  in  Christ 

But  there  must  first  be  reconciliation. 
Home  will  not  be  home  so  long  as  the 
wicked  feel  as  they  do  toward  the 
Father.      Christ's     blood  **is    shed    for 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved      1 1 3 

many  unto  remission  of  sins "  (Matt. 
xxvi.  28).  He  gave  his  ''  life  a  ransom 
for  many  "  (Mark  x.  45).  This  was  not 
an  accident.  The  death  of  the  Son  was 
part  of  the  plan  of  the  Father,  who 
*'  gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  on  him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  eternal  life"  (John  iii.  16). 
The  death  of  Christ  was  known  to  him 
from  the  beginning  of  his  ministry.  He 
knew  that  they  would  destroy  the  temple 
of  his  body  and  that  he  would  raise  it 
again  (John  ii.  19).  He  was  the  bride- 
groom who  would  be  taken  away  (Mark 
ii.  20).  He  died  not  as  an  example  to 
men,  but  to  save  men.  His  death  for 
sin  forms  the  basis  of  the  reconciling 
grace  of  God.  God  provided  the  sac- 
rifice for  sin  in  the  voluntary  offering 
of  his  Son.  This  basis  for  reconcilia- 
tion makes  it  possible  for  the  love  of 
God  which  sent  the  Son  to  offer  pardon 
for  sin.  But  the  pardon  must  be  ac- 
cepted.    There   must   be   confession    of 

H 


1 1 4  God  the  Father 

sin.  The  prodigal  son  cannot  come  back 
with  a  rebellious  heart  as  if  he  had  never 
been  away.  He  would  not  be  happy  if 
he  did  so  come.  To  confess  a  wrong  is 
the  only  manly  thing  to  do.  The  cul- 
prit cannot  make  atonement,  but  he  can 
make  confession.  God  himself  has  pro- 
vided the  atonement  in  Christ,  but  the 
sinner  must  confess  his  guilt.  This  is 
the  straightforward  plan  of  redemption 
as  taught  by  Jesus.  Thus  the  Father 
will  win  back  the  erring  children  who 
have  gone  astray,  who  have  lost  their 
place  in  the  Father's  family,  and  who 
are  willing  to  come  back  on  the  Father's 
terms.  They  are  gracious  terms  and  bear 
hard  on  none. 

Surely  the  Father  could  ask  no  less 
than  loving  obedience  when  he  offers 
so  much.  He  has  already  shown  his  own 
boundless  love  for  sinners  in  the  gift  of 
his  Son.  He  has  a  right  to  expect  love 
and  service  in  return.  To  those  who 
will  love   Christ,    the    door   is    opened 


Relation  to  the  Unsaved      1 1 5 

wide.  **  But  as  many  as  received  him, 
to  them  gave  he  the  right  to  become 
children  of  God,  even  to  them  that  be- 
Ueve  on  his  name  "  (John  i.  12).  This 
is  John's  interpretation  of  the  relation 
between  God  and  the  unsaved.  Christ 
offers  the  "  right "  of  sonship  to  every- 
one who  will  believe  on  his  name.  This 
is  the  only  way  for  those  who  have  lost 
their  spiritual  birthright  (and  all  have)  to 
get  it  back.  We  must  **  become  chil- 
dren of  God." 

Otherwise  the  Condemnation  Remains 

God  is  love.  This  is  the  greatest  fact 
about  God.  God  is  the  Father.  Jesus 
made  this  plainer  to  men  than  it  ever 
was  before.  But  these  great  and  glori- 
ous truths  do  not  exhaust  the  truth  about 
God.  He  is  the  ''  Holy  Father  "  (John 
xvii.  n)  and  the '*  Righteous  Father" 
(John  xvii.  25).  This  righteousness  is 
as  true  as  his  fatherly  love,  in  fact  his 
love  is  shown  in  his  fatherly  righteous- 


1 1 6  God  the  Father 

ness.  He  is  absolutely  "good"  and  alone 
in  such  goodness  (Mark  x.  18).  He  will 
not  pass  transgression  by  without  satis- 
faction to  his  own  sense  of  right.  For 
sin  is  with  God  a  terrible  reality,  not  a 
mere  accident,  misfortune,  or  disease. 
He  holds  us  responsible  for  our  sins. 
We  are  guilty.  God  is  willing  to  accept, 
in  fact  himself  provided,  the  priestly  sac- 
rifice of  his  own  Son  for  human  sin. 
That  is  the  limit  of  even  divine  love. 
The  depth  of  the  riches  of  the  love  of 
God  in  Christ  no  man  will  ever  know. 
To  refuse  such  love  confirms  eternally 
the  condemnation  already  resting  on  the 
sinner  who  deserves  his  punishment,  who 
has  sinned  against  the  light  of  nature, 
conscience,  and  often  even  revelation. 
The  awful  cloud  of  the  wrath  of  the 
Father  rests  on  the  rebellious  children 
who  have  spurned  his  love  and  mercy. 
No  wrath  is  quite  so  terrible  as  the  right- 
eous wrath  of  a  loving  Father.  A  chief 
punishment  in  that  wrath  will  be  eternal 
banishment  from  the  Father's  face. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Relation  of  God  to  Believers. 


"If  a  man  love  me,  he  \\-ill  keep  my  word  :  and  my  Father  ' 

will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  ' 

with  him  "  (John  xiv.  23).  j 

j 

Is  God  the  Father  of  all  Men  \ 

X>LEARLY  it  is  not  true  that  unre-  ; 

f.      generate    men   are   no  more   the  i 

children  of  God  than  the  beasts  of  j 

the  field.     It  is  true  that  some  scientists  \ 
conceive  that  all  animals  have  souls,  that 
in  the  spiritual  realm   men   differ  from 

other  animals  only  in  degree,  not  in  na-  i 
ture.     But,  whether  in  degree  or  nature, 

117  ^ 


1 1 8  God  the  Father 

men  are  like  God  in  a  sense  not  true  of 
the  lower  animals.  Man  is  indeed  the 
crown  of  God's  creation  and  his  destiny 
puts  him  far  above  other  created  beings 
in  the  world.  But,  while  all  this  is  true, 
the  general  Fatherhood  of  God,  which 
has  an  element  of  truth  in  it,  and  a  very- 
precious  truth,  has  been  much  over- 
worked in  our  day.  It  is  by  no  means 
the  case  that  men  have  only  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  they  are  the  children  of 
God  in  order  to  enter  into  the  privileges 
of  sonship.  The  sin  of  which  men  are 
guilty  towards  God  cannot  be  covered 
up  in  such  a  cavalier  fashion  as  that. 

If  in  one  sense  men  are  naturally  chil- 
dren of  God,  in  another  they  are  by  na- 
ture children  of  wrath,  being  born  in 
sin  and  conceived  in  iniquity.  Besides 
inheriting  original  sin  they  become  such 
disobedient  children  that  they  have  for- 
feited all  claims  to  the  Father's  favor, 
have  left  his  love  and  care,  gone  to  the 
enemy's  country,  and  can  be  called  the 


Relation  to  Believers        119 

children  of  the  world,  in  fact  the  chil- 
dren of  the  devil.  This  is  the  actual 
situation  which  must  not  be  obscured 
by  the  truth  that  is  contained  in  the 
general  fatherhood  of  God  over  men,  a 
fatherhood  made  inoperative  by  sin.  The 
rebellious  child,  poisoned  by  sin,  has 
been  justly  disinherited  by  the  Father. 
He  can  no  longer  call  God  his  Father. 

Becoming  Sons  of  God 

So  serious  and  vital  is  the  restoration 
to  the  favor  of  God  that  it  is  spoken  of 
by  Jesus  as  a  new  birth.  *'  Except  a 
man  be  born  anew,  he  cannot  see  the 
kingdom  of  God  (John  iii.  3).  Nico- 
demus  stumbled  helplessly  before  this 
radical  truth.  Three  times  Christ  ear- 
nestly and  solemnly  reiterated  that  we 
must  be  born  anew  or  from  above,  if 
we  are  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  God. 
In  the  spiritual  life,  then,  we  must  start 
all  over  again  as  a  little  child  begins  his 
life.     The    entrance    upon  the  new  life 


I20  God  the  Father 

is  a  birth  of  the  Spirit  of  God  (John  iii. 
5,  7).  So  far  have  we  fallen  from  our 
high  spiritual  estate  that  we  are  lost. 
We  have  broken  connection  with  God, 
and  are  utterly  unable  to  restore  it.  Un- 
til we  obtain  this  initial  spiritual  experi- 
ence signified  by  the  new  birth,  we 
cannot  lay  claim  to  membership  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  By  this  new  birth 
we  at  once  enter  upon  the  privileges 
and  blessings  of  the  kingdom.  It  '\^  not 
possible  to  make  this  language  of  Jesus 
signify  merely  a  recognition  of  sonship 
on  man's  part.  It  is  a  vital  religious  ex- 
perience by  which  one  enters  into  defi- 
nite relation  with  God. 

It  is  true  that  this  is  a  restoration  of 
a  relation  that  once  existed  between  God 
and  man  in  the  beginning,  a  relation 
that  was  broken  by  man's  sin.  To  all 
intents  and  purposes  it  is  a  new  relation. 
We  must  begin  de  novo  and  can  claim 
no  '*  rights  "  by  reason  of  the  beginning. 
God's  love  has  brooded  over  us  in  all  the 


Relation  to  Believers        121 

ages,  has  planned  the  means  by  which 
we  may  return  to  his  favor,  but  none 
the  less  he  demands  a  definite  experience, 
the  obtaining  a  new  heart  on  the  part  of 
the  one  who  comes  back  to  him.  There 
must  be  a  positive  turning  away  from  sin 
and  a  definite  acceptance  of  God  as  Father 
and  Christ  as  Saviour  from  sin.  The  New 
Testament  calls  this  experience  on  inan's 
side  repentance,  conversion,  and  faith. 
But  this  great  surrender  to  God  is  due  in 
every  case  to  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  is  in  connection  with,  and  logically 
the  result  of,  the  new  birth  of  the  Spirit. 
The  Father  enables  those  who  believe  to 
become  his  children.  "'  But  as  many  as 
received  him,  to  them  gave  he  the  right 
to  become  children  of  God,  even  to  them 
that  believe  on  his  name"  (John  i.  12). 
It  is  the  Evangelist  who  says  this  and  he 
is  speaking  of  the  Son.  It  is  only  through 
the  Son  that  the  Father  opens  the  door 
to  his  love.  The  **  right  "  or  **  power," 
it  will  be  observed,  is  a  gift.     We  cannot 


122  God  the  Father 

claim  any  **  rights  "  with  God  save  jus- 
tice. That  we  shall  receive,  and  that  is 
our  very  undoing,  for  eternal  punishment 
is  retributive  and  not  corrective.  This 
life  is  the  probation  period.  The  future 
life  is  the  place  of  eternal  states  with  re- 
wards and  restrictions.  The  **  right  "  to 
"  become "  children  of  God  will  be 
**  given  "  to  them  that  believe. 

Here  we  face  one  of  the  ultimate  prob- 
lems in  theology,  the  relation  between 
divine  sovereignty  and  human  free  agency. 
We  know  both  to  be  facts,  but  we  are 
unable  to  offer  any  solution  of  the  rela- 
tion between  them.  We  may  be  sure 
that  the  exercise  of  God's  elective  grace 
is  in  love,  that  it  respects  man's  independ- 
ence, and  that  it  gives  no  one  a  ground 
of  complaint  against  God.  We  may  also 
freely  preach  a  universal  gospel  which 
is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
to  all  who  believe.  God  does  not  ap- 
point the  ministers  of  the  Word  to 
select    the   subjects   of   his    grace.     He 


Relation  to  Believers        123 

does  that  himself.  Ours  to  offer  a 
free  gospel  to  all  and  press  it  home  on 
the  hearts  of  men.  God  will  be  faithful 
to  his  part  of  the  work.  Hyper-Calvin- 
ism is  as  unscriptural  as  extreme  Armin- 
ianism.  Neither  point  of  view  embraces 
the  whole  truth.  We  must  *'  believe  on 
his  name,"  but  we  are  *' born,  not  of 
blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor 
of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God  "  (John  i. 
13).  This  is  what  Paul  calls  **  adop- 
tion "  (Rom.  viii.  15),  **  whereby  we  cry, 
Abba,  Father."  The  signal  and  the 
supreme  truth  in  it  all  is  that  the 
Father  has  made  it  possible  for  us  to 
become  his  children  in  the  real  and 
vital  sense. 

The  Choice  of  the  Father  and  the  Choice  of 
the  Child 

No  one  can  come  unto  Christ  unless 
the  Father  draw  him  (Johnvi.  44).  God 
is  life  and  the  sinner  is  dead.  His  will 
is  ruined  by  sin.     He  loves  sin  and  is  at 


124  God  the  Father 

home  with  selfish  gratification  and  indul- 
gence. The  impulse  to  return  to  God 
must  come  from  God.  Out  of  the  mass 
of  rebellious  sinners,  who  are  no  longer 
in  his  family,  the  Father  chooses  the 
elect,  those  whom  he  wills  to  be  his.  It 
is  idle  for  us  to  speculate  about  the 
grounds  of  this  choice.  There  is  no 
merit  in  any  of  us.  We  have  all  sinned 
and  come  short.  Nor  do  we  know  the 
processes  by  which  the  Spirit  of  God 
works.  But  we  know  this.  The  rebel- 
lious child  must  will  to  come  back.  His 
own  will  must  respond  to  the  will  of  the 
Father.  In  the  blending  of  the  will  of 
the  Father  and  the  will  of  the  repentant 
sinner  we  have  the  great  initial  experience 
of  the  Christian  life.  The  will  is  king 
in  the  realm  of  spirit.  It  is  a  solemn 
crisis  when  the  awakened  conscience  bat- 
tles for  the  spiritual  victory.  **  Ye  will 
not  come  to  me,  that  ye  may  have  life  " 
(John  V.  40).  It  is  just  this  element  of 
will,  of  choice,  that  gives  moral  charac- 


Relation  to  Believers        125 

ter  to  the  acts   of  men,   that  makes  us 
godlike  in  prerogative. 

Reconciliation  is  the  favorite  term  of 
Paul  for  this  spiritual  process.  It  is  not 
used  by  Jesus,  but  the  idea  occurs  at 
every  turn.  The  Father  was  looking  for 
the  prodigal  to  return  and  w^as  glad  to 
hear  the  words  of  confession  from  his 
lips.  The  joy  in  the  heart  of  the  Father 
and  of  the  new-found  son  is  the  joy  of 
reconciliation.  Likewise  there  is  "  joy 
in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repent- 
eth  "  (Luke  xv.  7)  as  is  brought  out  in 
the  story  of  the  lost  sheep  and  also  of  the 
lost  coin  (Luke  xv.  10),  though,  to  be 
sure,  the  element  of  reconciliation  is  not 
distinctly  emphasized.  *'  Forgive  "  is  a 
word  that  Jesus  often  uses  of  the  Father 
in  relation  to  the  sinner  (Matt.  vi.  14  f.). 
God  does  not  forgive  our  sins  without 
reparation.  The  outraged  law  must  be 
satisfied.  Jesus  therefore  offered  himself 
a  **  ransom  for  many"  (Matt.  xx.  28). 
The  death  of  Christ  makes  a  basis  for 


126  God  the  Father 

reconciliation.  The  cross  is  the  hardest 
word  that  can  be  spoken  against  sin.  It 
cost  the  Father  the  blood  of  his  own  Son 
to  make  it  possible  to  forgive  sinners. 
But  the  basis  of  reconciliation  is  not  ac- 
tual reconciliation.  The  work  is  not 
fully  achieved  till  the  sinner  accepts 
heartily  the  terms  of  reconciliation. 
Then  he  comes  to  God  and  is  restored 
to  the  family  of  God.  The  choice  to 
become  a  child  of  God  is  the  highest 
exercise  of  man's  moral  nature.  If  the 
Father  chooses  the  child  and  adopts  him 
into  his  blessed  family,  no  less  the  child 
chooses  the  Father  and  wills  to  become 
a  member  of  this  glorious  household  of 
faith. 

How  does  the  Father  feel  towards  those 
wayward  children  who  have  wandered 
astray  ?  If  we  knew  the  terrible  heinous- 
ness  of  sin  and  the  bright  holiness  of  God, 
we  might  answer.  The  nearest  parallel 
that  we  can  find  is  in  the  lives  of  boys 
and  girls  who  have  brought  disgrace  on 


Relation  to  Believers        127 

the  family  name.  They  are  outcasts. 
Their  names  are  never  mentioned.  In- 
dignation, just  indignation,  is  felt  by 
father  and  mother,  at  the  treatment  such 
children  have  given  them.  And  yet, 
along  with  the  indignation,  there  is  un- 
utterable sorrow  and  deathless  yearning 
for  the  lost  son,  the  lost  daughter.  De- 
tectives may  be  employed  to  find  them. 
Message  after  message  may  be  sent  that 
forgiveness  awaits  them  if  they  will  re- 
pent and  come  back.  There  is  the 
trouble,  that  word  ''  repent."  In  despera- 
tion one  day  the  son  or  daughter  comes 
back  with  a  broken  heart  and  confesses 
all.  This  is  a  poor  parallel  and  fails  at 
many  points,  most  of  all  in  the  failure  to 
set  forth  the  awfulness  of  sin  and  the 
need  of  propitiation,  not  mere  confession. 
But  the  double  emotion  of  righteous 
anger  and  compassionate  love  is  set  forth. 
Let  us  in  all  our  theories  and  explanations 
never  wander  from  the  circle  of  God's 
surpassing  love,  a  love  that  held  not  back 


128  God  the  Father 

the  Son  himself  that  some  of  the  lost 
might  be  found,  a  love  too  holy  to  for- 
give without  justice  to  his  own  sense  of 
right  and  confession  by  the  sinner. 

The  Privileges  of  Children  of  God 

The  first  one  is  the  right  to  say 
**  Father  "  again.  That  of  itself  is  worth 
more  than  all  that  the  kingdom  of  Satan 
offers.  The  first  word  that  the  prodigal 
was  going  to  say  and  did  say  on  his  re- 
turn was  **  Father."  He  did  not  wish 
to  say  it  in  his  sinful  exile.  We  need 
not,  nor  perhaps  can  we,  decide  in  each 
instance  when  Jesus  says  "  Your  Father  " 
whether  the  audience  was  composed 
wholly  of  disciples  or  not.  Certainly  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  when  he  uses 
"  Father "  in  relation  to  men  sixteen 
times,  he  was  addressing  the  disciples  in 
the  presence  of  a  mixed  multitude  ac- 
cording to  both  Matthew  and  Luke.  The 
same  thing  is  true  in  Matt.  xiii.  But  if 
he  does   so  speak,  this  fact  would   not 


Relation  to  Believers        129 

mean,  when  he  says  **  Your  Father  "  that 
he  was  contemplating  under  this  expres- 
sion those  who  were  rebellious  children 
and  whom  he  elsewhere  calls  children  of 
the  devil.  Let  us  acknowledge  at  once 
that  when  Jesus  says  "  Thy  Father," 
**  our  Father,"  "your  Father,"  "your 
heavenly  Father,"  he  has  in  mind  those 
who  are  in  vital  relation  with  the  Father, 
the  members  of  the  family  of  God,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  Jesus  does  not  say 
that  the  unsaved  are  already  children  of 
God.  But  this  fact  by  no  means  proves 
that  the  unsaved  are  not  disinherited  chil- 
dren, lost  children  of  God,  whom  the 
Father  is  anxious  to  save,  and  whom  the 
Son  came  to  save.  Who  are  the  saved  in 
truth  but  the  lost  children  who  have  been 
found  ?  Before  they  were  found  they 
were  just  like  the  rest  not  yet  found. 
The  once  lost  but  now  found  child  can 
say  "  Father."     That  is  his  privilege. 

Prayer  is  the   breath,  the  atmosphere 
of  the  children  of  God.     Gratitude  and 


130  God  the  Father 

petition  are  on  the  lips  of  the  child  and 
in  his  heart  as  he  communes  with  his 
Father.  The  coldly  critical  spirit  that 
looks  on  prayer  as  an  '*  interference  "  with 
the  laws  of  God  has  a  pitifully  narrow 
idea  of  the  life  between  father  and  child. 
Jesus  taught  the  disciples  to  pray  and 
say  "Our  Father "  (Matt.  vi.  9).  It  is 
idle  to  ask  if  the  unsaved  can  pray.  Cer- 
tainly they  can,  but  it  is  not  communion 
of  spirit  such  as  the  restored  child  en- 
joys. It  is  rather  a  cry  in  the  dark,  a  cry 
for  help,  for  mercy.  Such  a  cry  is  heard, 
but  the  richness  of  prayer  belongs  to  the 
soul  that  has  come  back  to  the  Father 
and  rejoices  in  his  love. 

There  is  fear  still  in  the  child's  heart 
towards  the  Father.  It  is  sad  to  see  a 
child  lose  fear  for  his  father,  for  he  has 
lost  respect  for  him.  The  Christian  has 
small  ground  to  fear  those  who  can  harm 
only  the  body,  but  we  all  should  fear 
God  (Matt.  X.  28-30),  both  in  the  sense 
of  reverence  and   dread,  though   finally 


Relation  to  Believers        131 

perfect  love  casteth  out  fear.  Our  love 
for  God  must  not  be  flippant,  eff^ervescent, 
nor  too  familiar.  The  sense  of  fear  is 
necessary  to  the  high  and  holy  love  which 
should  burn  in  our  hearts  towards  the 
Lord  of  All.  Such  fear  will  not  prevent 
the  blessed  peace  and  fellowship  which 
constitute  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  an 
inner  state  of  the  heart.  This  fellowship 
rests  on  trust,  and  trust  is  just  the  essen- 
tial bond  between  us  and  God.  He  de- 
mands our  confidence.  He  has  done 
enough  for  us  to  deserve  our  unhesitating 
trust  for  present  and  future.  He  has  a 
full  hand  of  spiritual  mercies  for  the 
child  who  exercises  unreserved  trust. 
This  is  the  privilege  of  a  child  of  God, 
to  trust  him.  *'  Be  not  anxious  "  is  the 
message  that  Jesus  brings  as  the  secret 
of  a  happy  life.  Put  your  treasure  in 
heaven,  **  for  where  your  treasure  is, 
there  will  your  heart  be  also  "  (Luke  xii. 
34). 


132  God  the  Father 

The  Father  s  Care 

Such  trust  is  amply  justified  on  the 
part  of  God's  children.  Why  worry 
about  food  and  raiment  ?  *'  Your 
heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have 
need  of  all  these  things  "  (Matt.  vi.  32). 
Look  at  the  lilies  of  the  field  in  their 
royal  purple.  See  the  birds  of  the 
heaven  as  they  carol  their  joy.  Look  at 
the  sparrow^s,  not  one  of  whom  is  for- 
gotten in  the  sight  of  God.  **  But  the 
very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered. 
Fear  not ;  ye  are  of  more  value  than 
many  sparrows  "  (Luke  xii.  6  f.)  These 
and  other  strong  expressions  Jesus  used 
to  set  forth  the  providential  care  of  the 
Father  for  his  children. 

The  teaching  lifts  man  into  dignity. 
If  God  cares  this  much  for  men,  they 
must  be  worth  something.  Clearly 
Jesus  put  a  higher  estimate  upon  a  man 
than  those  who  make  him  merely  the 
victim  of  iron  laws,  mechanical  forces. 
The   supreme   truth   here   is   that  God 


Relation  to  Believers        133 

does  have  a  special  care  for  his  children, 
for  those  who  trust  him.  It  is  the  love 
of  the  Almighty  Father  that  finds  the 
petty  details  of  human  life  not  too  small 
for  his  interest  and  concern.  He  does 
the  least  :  he  counts  the  hairs  of  our 
head.  He  does  the  greatest ;  he  gives 
us  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  does  everything 
for  us  that  makes  for  our  spiritual  well- 
being.  Not  that  he  abrogates  the  laws 
of  life  nor  removes  from  us  the  necessity 
of  personal  activity  and  struggle  with  our 
environment.  But  the  Father  knows, 
cares,  and  helps.  All  else  is  easy  when 
this  is  true.  The  Father  and  the  Son 
make  their  abode  with  the  believer 
(John  xiv.  23).  The  union  with  Christ 
secures  union  with  the  Father,  a  union 
that  is  vital  and  eternal  and  fruitful  (John 
XV.  1-10). 

The  Duties  of  Children 

Willing  obedience  is  the  highest  form 
that  love  can  take  towards  one's   father. 


134  Go^  ^^^  Father 

It  should  not  be  a  cross  to  hearken  to 
the  voice  of  God,  if  we  really  love  him. 
The  reason  that  children  find  it  hard  to 
obey  is  because  self  is  assertive.  But  in 
the  religious  life  the  very  essence  of 
spirituality  is  submission  to  the  will  of 
God.  It  is  sin  that  makes  the  child  set 
himself  in  resistance  to  the  father. 
Obedience  does  not  save,  but  obedience 
is  a  test  of  salvation.  By  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them.  By  obedience  we  find 
the  doors  opened  to  spiritual  growth.  If 
any  man  is  willing  to  do  his  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  teaching.  It  is  not  enough 
for  the  child  of  God  to  talk  about  the 
privileges  of  sonship  and  disregard  God's 
purpose.    We  are  saved  to  serve. 

Jesus  sends  us  forth  as  the  Father  sent 
him.  We  cannot  call  ourselves  loyal 
sons  of  God  because  we  have  correct 
ideas  of  the  way  men  become  children 
of  God  while  we  lead  disobedient  and 
sinful  lives.  We  must  hear  the  call  of 
God  to  send  the  gospel  to  all  the  world 


Relation  to  Believers        135 

as  well  as  to  have  correct  teaching  and 
lead  holy  lives.  As  with  Christ,  so  with 
us,  our  meat  and  drink  should  be  to  do 
the  will  of  our  Father.  If  the  Father 
and  the  Son  really  dwell  in  us,  this  will 
be  our  highest  joy.  Duty  becomes  hap- 
piness, for  our  self-will  is  lost  in  the  will 
of  our  Father  whose  we  are  and  whom 
we  serve.  *'  If  ye  love  me,  ye  will  keep 
my  commandments  "  (John  xiv.  15). 

The  Destiny  of  Children 

It  is  to  be  with  the  Father  forever. 
For  this  purpose  the  Son  will  come  again 
and  take  us  to  the  Father.  He  has 
**  many  mansions  "  ready.  He  comes, 
we  may  believe,  in  the  death  of  every 
believer  and  takes  him  to  God.  He  will 
come  to  raise  the  bodies  of  all  in  the  end. 
Meanwhile  the  child  is  to  be  like  the 
Father.  He  is  to  be  perfect  as  the 
Father  is  perfect  (Matt.  v.  48).  He 
is  to  be,  for  example,  merciful  as  the 
Father  is  merciful  (Luke  vi.   36).     We 


136  God  the  Father 

know  little  as  to  the  details  of  heaven 
and  hell.  But  this  much  is  certain,  that 
hell  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  irrevocable 
choice  of  evil  made  here.  It  is  a  contin- 
uous confirmation  of  that  love  of  sin  and 
identification  with  sin.  So  heaven  is  fel- 
lowship with  the  Father  and  increasing 
likeness  to  the  Father.  *'  We  shall  be 
like  him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is." 
Jesus  is  our  Elder  Brother  and  we  are  to 
be  his  brethren.  God  is  his  Father  in  a 
sense  not  true  of  us  (John  xx.  17),  and 
yet  he  calls  us  ''brethren."  We  are  his 
*'  brothers  "  and  ''  sisters. "  **  For  who- 
soever shall  do  the  will  of  God,  the  same 
is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother  " 
(Mark  iii.  34  f.). 

It  was  to  bring  this  to  pass  that  Jesus 
left  his  throne  on  high,  became  a  servant 
to  men,  suffered  the  rebuffs  from  the 
religious  leaders  of  the  time,  endured  the 
shame  of  the  cross,  died  for  our  sins,  and 
rose  again.  He  is  not  ashamed  to  call  us 
brethren  (Heb.  ii.  11).     This  is  the  high 


Relation  to  Believers        137 

destiny  of  those  who  believe  in  God  the 
Father  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  has 
sent.  These  are  the  real  children  of  God, 
not  those  who  were  the  literal  descend- 
ants of  Abraham.  The  real  Israel  to 
Jesus,  as  to  Paul,  is  the  spiritual  Israel. 
The  true  family  of  God  are  the  elect 
who  love  him,  the  church  for  which 
Jesus 'died  and  which  he  washed  with 
his  blood.  *'  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my 
Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared 
for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world  "  (Matt.  xxv.  34). 


CHAPTER   IX 

Jesus'  Conception  of  God  Compared 
with  the  Apostolic  Teaching. 

"  He  shall  glorify  me :  for  he  shall  take  of  mine  and  de- 
clare it  unto  you  "  (John  xvi.  14). 

"  Being  therefore  by  the  right  hand  of  God  exalted,  and 
having  received  of  the  Father  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
he  hath  poured  forth  this,  which  ye  see  and  hear  "  (Acts  ii.  2,"^. 

"   T^ACK  to     Christ"  has   been    the 
j^J     watchword     of     modern    New 
Testament    theology.       It    is    a 
good    word    to    hearken    to,    provided 
no    unnatural    antithesis    is    made     be- 
tween  Jesus    and    his    Apostles.      The 
historical  method  of  Biblical  study  can 
138 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    139 

be  as  arbitrary  and  unreliable  in  its  re- 
sults as  the  purely  theological  method  if 
proper  poise  and  balance  be  not  pre- 
served. It  is  literally  true  that  it  has  cost 
a  real  struggle  for  the  modern  world  to 
brush  aside  medieval  theological  con- 
ceptions that  obscured  the  person  and 
teaching  of  Jesus.  The  battle  for  the 
restoration  of  the  original  gospel  has  been 
greatly  prolonged  and  is  still  going  on. 
But  the  historical  Christ  stands  in  clearer 
outline  to-day  than  at  any  time  since  the 
fourth  century  A.  D. 

The  Supremacy  of  Christ 

The  result  is  that  on  all  hands  men 
acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  Jesus  as 
teacher  of  religion  and  morals.  His 
spiritual  ideal  is  the  highest  that  the 
world  has  ever  had.  The  moral  and 
spiritual  isolation  of  Jesus  is  the  greatest 
miracle  of  the  world.  The  theories  of 
men  fail  to  explain  him  on  grounds  of 
natural  development.     All  do  not  accept 


140  God  the  Father 

the  necessary  consequence  of  his  su- 
premacy in  character,  works,  words,  and 
claims.  All  do  not  accept  him  as  being 
the  Son  of  God  in  essence  as  well  as  in 
character.  But  still  his  unique  position 
is  unchallenged.  Indeed,  so  sharply 
does  Jesus  now  stand  out  against  the 
theological  refinements  of  the  middle 
ages  that  there  is  a  strong  tendency  on 
the  part  of  some  to  minimize  the  im- 
portance of  the  Apostolic  teaching.  The 
vagaries  of  the  school-men  are  laid  at  the 
door  of  Paul  who  is  said  to  have  mis- 
understood Jesus  and  his  teaching  and 
to  have  rabbinized  Christianity.  "  Less 
of  Paul  and  more  of  Christ,"  they  say. 

All  this  has  a  specious  sound  and  may 
catch  the  unthinking.  It  is  a  far  cry 
from  Paul  to  Augustine,  not  to  say  An- 
selm  or  Thomas  Aquinas.  Is  Paul  more 
like  Augustine  or  Jesus  in  his  theology  ? 
Undeniably  Augustine  is  much  indebted 
to  Paul  and  may  have  interpreted  Paul 
at  some  points  apart  from  his  relation  to 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    141 

Jesus ;  but  there  is  much  in  Augustine 
that  does  not  come  from  Paul  or  Jesus. 
It  was  the  boast  of  Paul  that  he  had  a 
direct  revelation  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
(Gal.  i:  11  f.).  We  take  it  that  mediae- 
valism  was  a  perversion  of  Paul,  not  that 
Paul  perverted  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 
At  any  rate  we  must  not  seek  for  Paul's 
theology  through  the  eyes  of  Augustine, 
but  study  Paul  for  ourselves.  This  is 
not  to  say  that  the  world  is  not  under  a 
great  debt  both  to  Augustine  and  Calvin 
for  their  interpretations  of  Paul.  But 
we  must  not  charge  Paul  with  the  ex- 
cesses or  excrescences  of  even  the  great- 
est of  theological  teachers.  We  have 
the  words  of  Paul  and  the  words  of 
Jesus. 

The  First  Interpreters  of  Jesus 

This  is  a  happy  phrase  of  a  recent 
writer.  We  must  frankly  admit  that 
while  the  Apostles  were  with  Jesus  they 
failed  to  understand  him.     He  was  not 


142  God  the  Father 

like  his  environment  and  they  were. 
They  expected  a  temporal  kingdom  just 
before  he  ascended  on  the  clouds  to 
heaven  :  **  Lord,  dost  thou  at  this  time 
restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel  ? "  (Acts  i. 
6).  They  contended  over  the  first  places 
in  such  a  kingdom  even  on  the  night  of 
the  betrayal  (Luke  xxii.  24).  Hence  also 
the  doubt  that  held  them  fast  when  Jesus 
rose  from  the  dead.  Slowly  they  were 
convinced  that  he  had  risen  from  the 
grave.  Along  with  new  faith  came  new 
hope  and  joy,  but  they  were  still  power- 
less to  carry  out  the  Lord's  commission 
to  take  the  world  for  him.  Nor  did  they 
yet  apprehend  fully  either  the  person  of 
Christ  or  his  teaching.  They  had  indeed 
a  much  richer  store  of  material  now  that 
Jesus  had  risen  from  the  grave.  They 
occupied  a  far  better  standpoint  on  this 
side  of  the  empty  tomb.  The  words  of 
the  risen  and  triumphant  Christ  were 
ringing  in  their  ears.  But  even  yet  they 
did  not  fully  grasp  the  significance  of  the 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    143 

career  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  in  ten 
days  after  Jesus  went  back  to  the  Father 
a  transformation  came  over  Peter  and  the 
rest  who  were  waiting  for  the  promise 
of  the  Father  (Acts  i.  4). 

Jesus  had  promised  to  send  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  bring  all  things  to  their  remem- 
brance and  to  teach  them  all  things 
(John  xiv.  26).  **  He  shall  take  of  mine 
and  declare  it  unto  you"  (John  xvi.  14). 
The  fulfilment  of  this  promise  on  the 
great  Day  of  Pentecost  is  the  cardinal 
fact  in  the  apostolic  history  and  teaching. 
These  men  at  once  enter  upon  a  dis- 
tinctly new  epoch.  They  grasp  securely 
and  clearly  the  spiritual  significance  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  form  a  true 
estimate  of  the  work,  person,  and  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  in  connection  with  it.  There 
will  be  development  after  this  day,  but  it 
will  be  development  in  harmony  with 
this  epoch.  Once  Peter  will  signally  fail 
in  courage,  not  in  grasp  of  spiritual  truth 
(Gal.  ii.  n-21),  and  will  woefully  sin. 


144  ^od  the  Father 

It  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  facts  to  say- 
that  after  Pentecost  the  Apostles  are  as 
inadequate  guides  to  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  as  they  were  before.  Jesus  had 
said  that  they  would  understand  all  things 
when  the  Holy  Spirit  came,  and  the 
record  shows  the  fulfilment  of  that 
prophecy. 

We  cannot  then,  in  view  of  this  teach- 
ing of  Christ,  carelessly  brush  aside  the 
Apostolic  teaching  as  unnecessary  or  as 
incorrect.  He  expressly  said  that  he  had 
yet  many  things  to  say,  but  that  they 
could  not  bear  them  then.  "  Howbeit 
when  he,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  he 
shall  guide  you  into  all  the  truth  "  (John 
xvi.  12  f.).  Luke  begins  the  Acts  by 
speaking  of  what  **  Jesus  began  both  to 
do  and  to  teach "  (Acts  i.  1).  The 
Apostolic  teaching  justifies  the  prediction 
of  Christ.  These  first  interpreters  of 
Jesus  who  speak  under  the  new  en- 
lightenment of  the  Holy  Spirit  strike  the 
same   note  about  the  Father  that  Jesus 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    145 

did.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  a 
proper  sequel  to  the  Gospel  of  Luke  as 
the  author  feels  and  says  (Acts  i.  1). 
Peter  pointedly  identifies  the  events  on 
the  Day  of  Pentecost  as  the  fulfilment 
of  the  promise  of  the  Father  which  Jesus 
had  made :  *'  This  Jesus  did  God  raise 
up,  whereof  we  are  witnesses.  Being 
therefore  by  the  right  hand  of  God  ex- 
alted, and  having  received  of  the  Father 
the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  hath 
poured  forth  this,  which  ye  see  and 
hear"  (Acts  ii.  32  f.).  Stephen  boldly 
announced  the  purely  spiritual  nature  of 
God  who  **dwelleth  not  in  houses  made 
with  hands"  (Acts  vii.  48),  a  teaching 
in  exact  harmony  with  that  of  Jesus  to 
the  Samaritan  woman  (John  iv.  21  f.), 
but  entirely  too  advanced  for  the  cere- 
monial and  sacramental  Pharisees  who 
saw  in  it  a  desecration  of  the' temple. 

It  required,  it  is  true,  a  vision  for  Peter 
to  see  that  Gentiles  could  be  saved  with- 
out   first   becoming   Jews.      Jesus   had 
J 


146  God  the  Father 

said  :  **  Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are 
not  of  this  fold  "  (John  x.  16).  Jesus  had 
also  made  all  meats  clean  when  he  re- 
buked the  pettifogging  Pharisees  who 
had  a  doctrine  about  eating  with  un- 
washed hands  (Mark  vii.  19).  But  it 
was  not  till  Peter  actually  stood  inside  of 
the  house  of  Cornelius  the  Gentile  that  he 
was  able  to  say  :  *'  Of  a  truth  I  perceive 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  :  but 
in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  him,  and 
worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable  to 
him"  (Acts  x.  34).  He  did  not  mean 
that  Cornelius  was  already  saved  before 
he  came,  for  he  expressly  states  that  he 
was  to  speak  words  '*  whereby  thou  shalt 
be  saved,  thou  and  all  thy  house  "  (Acts 
xi.  14).  What  he  means  is  that  Cornelius 
can  be  saved  and  remain  a  Gentile.  God 
will  be  Father  of  Gentlies  as  well  as 
Jews.  This  is  indeed  a  great  light  ,•*  it  is 
the  same  light  that  Jesus  shed,  but  that 
Peter  had  until  now  been  too  blind  to 
see. 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    147 

The  Gospel  Records  hater  in  Date  than  the 
Earliest  Epistles 
The  facts  just  appealed  to  follow  nat- 
urally the  closing  scenes  in  the  Gospels. 
It  may  be  replied  that  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  was  not  written  till  some  time 
after  the  events  here  recorded.  This  is 
true,  but  it  is  also  true  of  the  Gospels 
themselves.  In  neither  case,  however, 
is  the  testimony  properly  invalidated.  It 
is  evident  from  the  prologue  to  Luke's 
Gospel  (Luke  i.  1-3)  that  there  were 
written  sources  before  his  Gospel  was 
undertaken,  probably  Mark  and  Mat- 
thew, and  still  earlier  and,  perhaps, 
briefer  sketches.  There  were  still  also 
eyewitnesses  of  the  life  of  Jesus  whom 
Luke  consulted.  The  life  and  words  of 
Jesus  had  been  preached  over  a  large 
part  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Luke  was 
an  historian  in  method  and  spirit.  The 
same  careful  accuracy  claimed  in  his 
Gospel  (Luke  i.  3)  is  exhibited  in  the 
Acts. 


148  God  the  Father 

But,  while  all  this  is  true,  it  can  be 
justly  said  to  those  who  seek  unduly  to 
depreciate  the  Apostolic  teaching  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  Jesus  that  we  only 
have  the  words  of  Jesus  in  the  writings 
of  his  disciples  and  followers.  If  we 
may  not  believe  the  interpretation  of 
John's  Epistles,  why  his  Gospel?  If 
Peter's  Epistles  are  to  be  discredited, 
why  accept  Mark's  Gospel  written  under 
his  influence  ?  If  Paul  is  a  false  inter- 
preter of  Jesus,  why  follow  Luke,  Paul's 
companion  and  admirer  ?  If  James,  the 
champion  of  true  Judaism,  does  not  un- 
derstand Jesus,  why  listen  to  Matthew's 
Jewish  Gospel?  Certainly  I  and  II 
Thessalonians  antedate  the  earliest  of  our 
Gospels  and  probably  James,  I  and  II 
Corinthians,  Galatians,  and  Romans,  with 
possibly  a  number  of  other  Episdes. 
We  must  on  historical  grounds  listen  to 
the  Apostolic  teaching  if  we  wish  to  pre- 
serve the  Gospels  as  genuine  records  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus. 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    149 

The  Earlier  and   the  Later  Epistles  Give 
the  Same  View  of  the  Father 

In  I  Thessalonians,  the  earliest  of 
Paul's  Epistles  and  dating  probably  A.  D. 
52,  we  find  him  saying :  *'  God  the 
Father"  (i.  1),  *' our  God  and  Father" 
(i.  3;  iii.  11).  Likewise  in  II  Thessa- 
lonians, written  a  few  months  later,  we 
see  him  writing,  **  God  our  Father " 
(i.  1  ;  ii.  16).  In  James  we  read  of  "  the 
Father  of  lights  "  (i.  17)  and  of  "  pure 
religion  and  undefiled  before  our  God 
and  Father  "  (i.  27).  So  also  James  says 
that  with  the  tongue  we  bless  "  the  Lord 
and  Father  "  (iii.  9). 

In  Paul's  Epistles  of  the  second  and 
third  groups  (land  II  Cor.,  Gal.  Rom., 
Phil.,  Col.,  Eph.)  we  meet  very  often 
the  expressions  God  the  Father,  God 
our  Father.  The  personal  letter  to 
Philemon  does  not  so  speak  of  God.  In 
Hebrews  xii.  9  God  is  called  **  the 
Father  of  spirits."  In  I  and  II  Peter, 
Jude,  I  and  II  John   (not  III  John)  we 


150  God  the  Father 

likewise  see  the  expression  God  the 
Father.  In  the  Pastoral  Epistles  God 
is  not  specifically  called  Father,  but 
rather  '*  God  our  Saviour  "  (I  Tim.  i. 
1  ;  Titus  i.  3  ;  II  Tim.  i.  10).  In  the 
Revelation  of  John  only  twice  is  God 
called  Father  (i.  6  ;  xiv.  1)  and  then  he 
is  spoken  of  as  the  Father  of  Jesus  the 
Lamb  of  God.  But  there  is  no  radical 
difference  in  conception  in  the  various 
Apostolic  writings  save  in  the  Pastoral 
Epistles.  This  group  is  dominantly  ec- 
clesiastical and  soteriological  in  idea,  and 
hence  Paul  seems  to  prefer  Saviour  to 
Father.  Each  writer  approaches  the 
idea  of  God  the  Father  from  his  own 
standpoint.  But  it  is  the  same  God  and 
Father  of  us  all  who  is  presented  whether 
in  Thessaloniansorin  Ephesians,  whether 
in  James  or  Paul,  whether  in  John  or 
Peter. 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    151 

The  Teaching  of  Christ  about  the  Father 
the  Norm  of  the  Apostolic  Teaching 
The  Apostles  speak  of  God  as  Father 
much  more  frequently  than  do  the  Old 
Testament  writers.  They  have  caught 
the  new  accent  of  Jesus  whose  great  aim 
was  so  to  reveal  the  Father  to  men  that 
reconciliation  would  be  made  between 
God  and  man  on  the  basis  of  his  atoning 
death.  The  word  Father  is  on  the  lips 
of  Jesus  at  every  turn  and  he  uses  it  far 
more  frequently  than  do  the  authors  of 
the  Acts  and  Epistles.  This  is  but  nat- 
ural. No  one  had  the  right  to  speak  in 
such  familiar  terms  of  the  Father  as  did 
Jesus.  God  was  his  Father  in  a  sense 
not  true  of  others,  and  to  set  forth  the 
Father  was  his  highest  aim,  while  the 
Apostles,  taught  by  the  Spirit,  bore  wit- 
ness to  Christ.  But  under  the  tutelage 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
bears  rich  results.  The  Apostles  pro- 
claim God  as  Father  in  exactly  the  same 
sense  that  Jesus  announced  him  to  men. 


152  God  the  Father 

God  is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  (Eph.  i.  3)  in  a  special  sense.  He 
is  in  some  sense  the  Father  of  all  men, 
as  Paul  says  :  *'  Our  God  and  Father  of 
all,  who  is  over  all,  and  through  all,  and 
in  all  "  (Eph.  iv.  6),  where  he  seems  to 
be  speaking  of  God  in  his  eternal  rela- 
tions to  all  the  universe,  though  the  con- 
text here  clearly  points  to  the  saved. 
Compare  what  Paul  said  on  Mars  Hill : 
**  For  we  are  also  his  offspring.  Being 
thus  the  offspring  of  God  we  ought  not 
to  think  that  the  Godhead  is  like  unto 
gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  device  of  man "  (Acts  xvii. 
28  f.). 

But  this  general  sonship  of  all  men 
does  not  save  them.  God  *'  commands 
men  that  they  should  all  everywhere  re- 
pent"  (Acts  xvii.  30).  The  fact  that 
God  is  the  Father  of  our  spirits  does  not 
constitute  us  members  of  the  family  of 
God,  the  household  of  faith.  *'  If  any 
man  hath  not  the  spirit  of  Christ,  he  is 


The  Apostolic  Teaching    153 

none  of  his  "  (Rom.  viii.  9).  **  As  many 
as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  these  are 
sons  of  God  "  (Rom.  viii.  14).  These 
alone  **  have  the  spirit  of  adoption  where- 
by M^e  cry,  Abba,  Father."  These  alone 
are  children  of  God,  heirs  of  God,  and 
joint  heirs  with  Christ  (Rom.  viii.  15  f.). 
This  is  in  exact  accord  with  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  concerning  God  the  Father  who 
in  one  sense  is  the  Father  of  all  men,  but 
on  the  other  hand  includes  in  his  family 
and  kingdom  only  those  who  have  been 
born  again,  who  have  made  peace  with 
the  Father  by  Christ's  death  and  through 
a  repentant  heart.  It  is  probably  in  this 
same  twofold  sense  that  Paul  uses  the 
term  Saviour  as  applied  to  God  when  in 
I  Tim.  iv.  10  he  speaks  of  God  as  **the 
Saviour  of  all  men,  specially  of  them 
that  believe. "  He  sends  the  rain  on  all 
(Acts  xiv.  17)  as  Paul  showed  at  Lystra. 
But  he  is  Father  and  Saviour  of  those 
that  believe  in  a  special  and  glorious 
sense  not  true  of  those  who  are  still  in 


154  ^od  ^^^^  Father 

the  '*  far  country "  and  whose  destiny 
will  be  the  outer  darkness  away  from 
the  Father's  home  and  the  Father's 
love. 


CHAPTER  X 

Jesus  Conception  of  God  the  Ruling 
Idea  in  Theology. 

"  Sir,  we  would  see  Jesus  "  (John  xii.  21). 
"  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us  "  (John  xiv. 
8). 

/T  has  been  hard  for  men  to  see  God, 
though  he  is  not  far  from  any  of  us. 
We  have  blinded  our  eyes  so  that  we 
cannot  see.  We  grope  helplessly  in  the 
dark.  The  light  of  reason  is  clear  enough 
to  show  us  that  God  is,  but  sin  has  such  a 
grip  on  our  wills  that  we  cannot  act  on 
this  light.  We  have  in  our  sinful  pride 
wandered  away  from  God.     We  flounder 

155 


156  God  the  Father 

in  a  sea  of  doubt  as  we  struggle  back  to- 
ward God. 

Theology  a  Changing  Quantity 

There  is  theology  and  theology. 
There  is  evangelical  theology  and 
rationalistic  theology.  There  is  sacra- 
mental theology  and  experimental  the- 
ology. Radical  differences  divide  the- 
ology into  opposing  camps.  Some  of 
these  lines  of  divergence  reappear  in  every 
age.  The  emphasis  on  the  form  as  a 
means  of  salvation  as  opposed  to  the  spirit- 
ual reahty  was,  if  possible,  sharper  in 
Christ's  day  than  in  ours.  Mere  tradi- 
tionalism suits  some  minds  and  costs  less 
expenditure  of  mental  energy  than  a  vital 
spiritual  experience.  In  each  type  of 
theology  there  is  growth  and  adaptation. 
All  life  is  change,  and  a  live  theology  is 
ever  seeking  new  light  from  the  word 
of  life.  Theology  is  man's  attempt  to 
interpret  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
and  the  Bible  and  the  world.     This  at- 


Ruling  Idea  of  Theology    157 

tempt  varies  in  different  men  and  in 
different  epochs  of  the  world.  Each 
age  comes  into  possession  of  a  new  angle 
of  vision,  a  new  vantage  ground  of  inter- 
pretation ;  precisely  as  science  is  not  ab- 
solute, but  is  ever  changing  its  concep- 
tions of  the  universe.  The  truth  in  the 
old  remains,  while  the  new  is  tested  for 
its  truth. 

This  is  not  saying  that  one  form  of 
theology  is  as  good  as  another.  Far  from 
it.  The  truth  is  the  goal  of  theology. 
Much  truth  has  long  been  won  and  this 
cannot  be  taken  away  from  us.  But  we 
do  not  yet  apprehend  all  truth.  We  are 
still  pressing  on.  Theology  is  not  un- 
reliable because  of  this  changing  flow  of 
life.  It  would  be  unreliable  and  useless 
if  it  were  not  able  to  assimilate  new  truth 
and  adjust  itself  to  new  conditions.  Life 
will  crack  the  hardest  moulds  in  rock  or 
mind  in  time.  Theology  should  be 
neither  old  nor  new,  but  embrace  the 
truth  in  both. 


158  God  the  Father 

God  the  Center  of  all  Theology 
Theology  is  the  doctrine  of  God  which 
we  formulate.  There  is  this  common 
bond,  then,  in  all  theology  worthy  of 
the  name.  It  is  an  honest  effort  to  pre- 
sent orderly  conceptions  of  the  truth 
about  God  in  all  his  relations,  and  espe- 
cially in  his  relation  to  man.  It  is  but  just 
to  say  that  while  the  word  theology  has 
God  as  the  center,  not  all  theology  pre- 
serves this  etymological  truth.  Some 
theology  is  man-centered  and  not  God- 
centered.  But  clearly  the  right  way  to 
approach  the  discussion  of  man  is  from 
the  point  of  view  of  God.  We  need 
the  man  Christ  Jesus  to  show  us  what 
God  the  Father  is,  but  even  here  he  is 
showing  us  God,  and  it  is  God  who  has 
sent  his  Son  in  the  flesh  to  reveal  himself 
to  us.  Christ  is  not  man's  efi^ort  to  find 
God,  but  God's  endeavor  to  reveal  him- 
self to  men.  We  can  never  reach  the 
truth  about  God  or  man  if  we  put  man 
in  the  center  of  our  theological  system. 


Ruling  Idea  of  Theology    159 

Christ  the  Starting  Point  of  Modern  The- 
ology 
Christ  is  the  most  clearly  drawn  char- 
acter in  history.  His  picture  fills  the  eye 
of  the  civilized  world.  It  is  no  mere  pic- 
ture. The  reality  of  this  supreme  per- 
sonage is  the  chief  fact  in  history.  His 
ethical  teachings  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  enlightened  conscience.  His  spirit- 
ual sympathies  touch  the  hearts  of  men. 
He  is  the  world's  Ideal  become  real. 
Jesus  is  then  the  meeting  place  for  those 
who  love  God  and  those  who  merely 
love  their  fellowmen.  The  theological 
and  the  non-theological  can  find  common 
ground  in  him.  If  we  expect  to  win  the 
sceptic,  the  agnostic,  the  worldly,  the  in- 
different, the  grossly  sinful,  the  only  hope 
of  so  doing  is  in  Jesus.  The  modern 
apologetic,  if  it  is  to  become  effective 
and  not  be  a  mere  dialectic,  must  start 
with  the  acknowledged  truth  in  the  per- 
son of  Jesus.  The  enemies  of  religion 
well   understand    this   obstacle    in   their 


i6o  God  the  Father 

path.  Lines  of  opposition  that  start  far 
away  from  Christ  are  laid  ultimately 
against  his  supreme  position  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  So  long  as  Christ  rules  the  lives 
of  men,  Christianity  dominates  the  world. 

Christ's  Conception  of  God  the  Truth 

God  is  absolute  and  we  cannot  take  in 
the  absolute,  for  we  are  finite.  Jesus 
did  not  reveal  God  in  abstract  argument. 
He  revealed  God  in  the  concrete,  in 
himself,  the  only  begotten  Son.  God  is 
like  Jesus.  If  men  wish  to  get  definite 
conceptions  of  God  the  Father,  let  them 
look  at  Jesus.  Jesus  simply,  but  abruptly 
said  :  "I  am  the  truth."  We  get  lost  in 
the  mazes  of  argument  and  the  truth 
escapes  us.  In  Jesus  the  truth  is  trans- 
parent and  is  personified.  Hence  the 
revelation  of  God  the  Father  in  Christ 
is  final.  The  prophecies  pointed  in 
outline  to  him.  The  Apostles  sought 
by  interpretation  to  explain  him.  We 
aim  to  group  together  the  entire  picture 


Ruling  Idea  of  Theology    i6i 

in  prophecy,  historical  fact,  and  interpre- 
tation. But  we  shall  fail  even  thus  to 
see  correctly  Christ  and  God  in  Christ 
unless  we  experience  God  in  our  hearts. 
For  Christ  came  not  to  reveal  the  Father 
simply  as  an  intellectual  or  historical  fact, 
but  as  a  spiritual  experience  in  the  life 
of  the  sinner.  This  is  ultimate  truth 
verified  in  the  spirit  of  man  who  is 
brought  again  into  vital  union  with 
God  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Christ' s    Conception    of  God    Unifies 
Revelation 

All  the  slow  stages  of  Israelitish  history 
culminate  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  about 
God  the  Father.  The  prophets  in  those 
different  epochs  fall  into  harmony  around 
this  great  organizing  idea.  The  Apos- 
tolic writings  flow  out  normally  from 
this  stream  of  truth.  Type  finds  its  ful- 
filment. Symbol  gathers  up  the  love  of 
God  in  the  death  of  Christ.  The  spirit 
conquers  the  letter.     The  right  interpre- 


1 62  God  the  Father 

tation  with  open  Bible  and  open  mind 
becomes  possible.  Thus  alone  the  reader 
gains  access  to  the  historical  and  spiritual 
interpretation  of  Scripture. 

Christ's    Conception    of  God    Satisfies    the 
Reason  and  the  Facts  of  Life 

The  reason  is  not  surrendered  when 
one  becomes  a  Christian.  Rather  is  it 
satisfied.  The  necessary  limitations  of 
the  human  mind  make  possible  greater 
freedom  in  other  directions.  The  first 
step  in  intellectual  progress  is  made  when 
one  recognizes  his  limitations.  We  can- 
not explain  all  the  problems  of  the  uni- 
verse. We  cannot  solve  the  mysteries 
in  our  own  complex  nature.  Jesus  him- 
self in  his  twofold  nature  is  the  supreme 
mystery.  And  yet,  waiving  the  mystery 
that  is  insoluble,  the  mind  has  rest  in 
Jesus,  the  God-man,  the  mediator  be- 
tween God  and  man.  He  satisfies  our 
need  of  a  helper  to  intercede  with  God 
for  us.     His  perfect  character  commands 


Ridhig  Idea  of  Theology    163 

the  allegiance  of  our  hearts.  We  are 
willing  to  listen  to  such  a  man  when  he 
speaks  of  the  highest  and  most  vital 
things.  The  fact  of  sin  calls  for  a  Saviour. 
Baffled  mankind  need  no  longer  be 
beaten  by  the  tempter  if  refuge  be  taken 
in  Christ. 

To  Know  God  we  Must  Know  Christ 

Let  this  be  our  last  word  about  Christ 
and  the  Father.  He  would  not  have 
come  to  earth  if  it  had  not  been  neces- 
sary. He  knew  how  he  would  be  treated 
before  he  came.  He  offered  his  life 
a  ransom  for  many.  If  men  could  find 
God  without  his  help,  he  would  not  have 
come  at  all.  Before  the  Incarnation, 
some  had  found  God,  it  is  true.  To 
some  God  the  Father  manifested  himself 
directly.  To  some  the  Son  appeared  in  a 
theophany.  To  some  the  Holy  Spirit 
spoke.  But  the  world  as  a  whole  was 
in  darkness.  Even  the  Jewish  world 
knew  not  God  in  spirit   and    in  reality. 


164  God  the  Father 

When  the  Son  of  God  came  to  his  own 
people,  descendants  of  Abraham  and  nat- 
ural heirs  of  the  kingdom  promised  to 
David,  they  did  not  recognize  him.  His 
own  people  knew  him  not. 

But  out  of  the  great  world  Christ  has 
found  a  spiritual  Israel,  true  sons  of  God, 
who  have  responded  to  the  message 
which  he  has  brought  to  men.  The 
Father  calls  and  those  who  are  willing  to 
be  his  children  hear  his  voice.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  find  God  now,  since  Jesus  has 
brought  him  near  to  our  minds,  and  since 
the  Holy  Spirit  presses  home  that  mes- 
sage to  our  hearts.  The  sublime  fellow- 
ship of  the  risen  Christ  is  ours,  if  we  will. 
**  Go  unto  my  brethren,  and  say  to  them, 
I  ascend  unto  my  Father  and  your  Father, 
and  my  God  and  your  God "  (John 
XX.  17). 

The  joyful  task  before  the  true  children 
of  God  is  to  make  known  Christ's  view 
of  the  Father.  We  shall  best  do  this  as 
we  help  men  see  Jesus.     It  is  not  alone 


Ruling  Idea  of  Theology    165 

by  word  of  exposition  that  this  sublime 
work  is  to  be  performed.  If  we  walk  as 
Jesus  walked,  in  his  spirit  and  with  his 
ideals,  we  shall  show  that  God  the  Father 
indeed  dwells  in  us. 

What  the  world  most  hungers  for  is 
not  intellectual  arguments  to  prove  that 
God  exists,  but  the  life  that  silently,  but 
genuinely  witnesses  to  the  presence  of 
God  in  heart,  word,  and  deed.  The 
practice  of  the  presence  of  God  here  and 
now  is  the  greatest  sermon  to  the  un- 
saved and  is  the  foretaste  of  heaven  itself. 
If  God  is  to  be  our  Father  hereafter,  he 
must  be  our  Father  here.  Jesus  brought 
God  the  Father  vividly  and  powerfully  to 
the  hearts  of  men  in  this  life.  He  left 
that  impression  and  that  reality  in  the 
world  as  a  permanent  theological  concep- 
tion and  as  a  vital  religious  experience. 
The  best  teacher  of  the  presence  and 
guidance  of  the  Father  is  he  whose  life 
is  most  like  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  union 
of  the  believer  with  Christ  the  true  Vine 


1 66  God  the  Father 

should  be  fruitful.  **  For  to  me  to  live  is 
Christ."  That  is  Paul's  motto  and  no 
higher  can  be  expected,  for  that  is  to  let 
the  Incarnate  Word  rule  the  life. 


CHAPTER    XI 

Siminiary. 

"  I  ascend  unto  my  Father  and  your  Father,  and  my  God 
and  your  God  "  (John  xx.   17). 

/T  may  be  well  to  take  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  the  whole  argument  as  to 
the  Teaching  of  Jesus  concern- 
ing God  the  Father.  It  is  impossible 
to  overestimate  the  importance  of  the 
subject  of  this  volume.  It  is  not  exag- 
geration to  say  that  it  is  the  most  vital  of 
all  themes  to  sinful  men.  The  very  fail- 
ure of  men  to  reach  adequate  truth  about 
God  accents  the  value  of  the  revelation 
of  the  Father  in  the  Son.     There  was 

167 


1 68  God  the  Father 

much  revealed  truth  about  God  in  the 
Old  Testament,  but  this  was  not  properly 
apprehended.  It  was  not  till  God  ex- 
pressed himself  in  bodily  form  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ  that  the  idea  of 
God  became  real,  tangible,  sympathetic, 
winsome,  dominating.  In  Christ  the  old 
truth  became  clearer,  and  new  truth 
about  the  Father  became  possible. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  becomes 
thus  not  only  a  necessity,  but  a  comfort- 
ing truth  of  the  Godhead.  As  Jesus 
revealed  the  Father  in  himself,  the  Holy 
Spirit  reveals  the  Son  to  us  that  we  may 
know  the  Father. 

God  is  Lord  of  creation.  He  is  person 
and  not  the  material  universe.  It  is 
God's  world,  but  the  world  is  not  God. 
Men  are  like  God  in  a  sense  that  animals 
are  not.  We  bear  the  image  of  God  in 
our  immortal  spirits,  an  image  so  blurred 
by  sin  that  we  no  longer  deserve  to  be 
called  the  children  of  God  who  is  in  fact 
the  Creator  of  our  souls  and  bodies.     But 


Summary  1 69 

what  we  have  lost  can  be  restored  by  the 
new  birth  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  new 
spiritual  birth  is  made  possible  by  the 
atoning  death  of  Christ  as  the  sacrifice  for 
sin.  Those  who  are  thus  reconciled  to 
God  become  members  of  the  family  of 
God,  enter  the  kingdom,  and  have  eter- 
nal life. 

The  apostolic  teaching  is  an  interpreta- 
tion of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  by  men  who 
were  specially  equipped  by  personal  ex- 
perience with  Jesus  and  his  followers. 
More  than  this  they  had  also,  for  Jesus 
had  promised  them  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  be  their  teacher.  It  is  natural  and 
proper  that  the  fundamental  and  ax- 
iomatic truths  of  Christ  should  receive 
fuller  expansion  in  the  Apostolic  teaching. 
It  is  a  false  antithesis  to  depreciate  the 
apostolic  teaching  by  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  They  were  not  only  the  first  and 
authoritative  interpreters  of  Christ,  but 
we  should  not  have  the  words  of  Jesus 
save  for  what  they  have  written.     Jesus 


1 70  God  the  Father 

wrote  only  in  the  hearts  of  men,  with  the 
Spirit,  not  with  pen  and  ink. 

The  ruling  idea  in  present  day  theology 
is  Jesus'  teaching  concerning  God  the 
Father.  It  is  bound  to  be  the  dominant 
conception  in  all  spiritual  Christianity. 
A  formal  theology  that  hides  Christ  from 
men  behind  theological  phrases  conceals 
God  from  men.  It  is  when  men  see 
Christ  that  they  know  God.  Jesus  is 
the  Saviour  from  sin  and  not  theology, 
not  even  orthodox  theology.  Christo- 
centric  theology  is  the  kind  that  should 
enlist  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  teacher  of 
men,  and  even  this  theology  should  not 
come  between  Christ  and  the  sinful 
heart. 


THE   END 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 

A 
Alienation  from   God,  102. 
Anselm,  140. 
Apologetic  of  Jesus,  65. 
Apostolic  teaching,  138. 
Aquinas,   140. 
Atheism,  2,  6. 
Augustine,  140. 

B 

Becoming  sons  of  God,  iig. 
Believers  actual  children  of  God,  117. 
Buddha,  33. 
Buddhist,  1 1. 

C 

Center  of  all  theology,  158. 

Character  of  God  according  to  Jesus,  37. 

Children  of  God,  who  are,  1 1 7  f 

duties  of,  133. 

privileges  of,  128. 

destiny  of,  135. 

171 


172  Index  of  Subjects 

Choice  of  the  Father  and  choice  of  the  child,  123. 

Christ  the  starting  point,  159. 

Christ's  conception  of  God  true,  160. 

Claim  of  Jesus  about  his  message,  31. 

Confucius,  33. 

Created  in  image  of  God,  1 01. 

E 

Earlier  and  later  Epistles,  149. 
Eternal  life,  109. 
Eternal  punishment,  108. 
Evil,  origin  of,  4. 
Evolution,  3,  4,  8,  11. 

F 

Father  and  the  Son,  43. 

Fiske,  8. 

First  interpreters  of  Jesus,  141. 

G 

Gospels  and  earliest  Epistles,  147. 

H 

Hades,  108  f. 

Haeckel,  7. 

Harmony  in  work  of  Father  and  Son,  61. 

Heaven,  109. 


Index  of  Subjects  173 

Hegel,  8.  j 

Helen  Keller,  2.  ; 

Hell,  io8. 

Holy  Spirit,  a  person,  75.  , 

and  Jesus,  72.  : 

and  the  Father,  70.  '\ 

blasphemy  against,  78.  :i 

promises  of  the  Father  about,  80.  ^ 

Hope  for  a  godless  world,  2. 

Homer,  12.  I 

Huxley,  94. 

I  ! 

Importance  of  a  knowledge  of  God,  i.  ; 

Interflow   of  knowledge  between  the  Father  and  \ 

the  Son,  59,  \ 

J  \ 

Johannine  question,  The,  25.  ; 

Judaism,  9. 

Jupiter,  12.  i 

■i 
K  : 

Kelvin,  7.  ; 

Kingdom  of  God,  98.  ■ 

Knowing  God,  163.  ! 

i 
j 
( 


174         Index  of  Subjects 

L 

Lost  children  of  God,  1 1 1. 

Love  of  the  Father  sends  the  Son,  25. 

M 

Materialism,  7. 

Modern  ideas  about  God,  i,  6  fF. 

Mahomet,  33. 

N 
Nature  of  Father  and  Son,  52. 
Norm  of  the  apostolic  teaching,  151. 

o 

Old  Testament,  attitude  of  Jesus  toward,  14. 
basis  of  Jesus'  teaching,  14. 
character  of  God  in,  21. 
God's  covenant  with  men  in,  22. 
progressive  character  of,  16. 
teaching   about   God   the  Father, 

18. 
two  views  of,  16  f. 


Paul,  140. 
Plato,  10. 


Index  of  Subjects  175 

Q 

Qualified  to  reveal  the  Father,  27. 

R 

Reason  and  Christ's  conception  of  God,  162. 
Reconciliation  possible  in  Christ,  112. 
Revealer  of  God  to  men,  24. 
Ritschlianism,  9,  33,  59. 
Romanes,  Geo.  J.,  8. 
Ruling  idea  in  theology,  155. 

S 

Satan,  5. 

Satisfaction  of  the  Father  in  the  Son,  67. 

Socrates,  14, 

Son  and  the  Father,  43. 

Son  of  God,  56  f. 

Son  of  man,  58. 

Spencer,  7,  94. 

Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  7, 

Supremacy  of  Christ,  139. 

T 

Theology  a  changing  quantity,  156. 
Trinity,  fact  of,  70. 

order  of  Persons  in,  76. 


176  Index  of  Subjects 

u 

Unifying  power  of  Christ's  conception,  161. 

Unique  relation  between  Father  and  Son,  44. 

Unitarian,  33. 

Unity,  character  between  Father  and  Son,  63. 

Universal  fatherhood  of  God,  1 1 7  f. 

Universe,  God  more  than,  92. 

Unsaved  and  God,  100. 

W 

World,  God's  revelation  to,  85. 

God's  love  for,  95. 

senses  of  term  with  Jesus,  88. 
World  view  of  Jesus,  85. 


Zeus,  12. 
Zoroaster,  33. 


INDEX  OF  TEXTS 


1 1  Samuel  vii. 

13  16 

,221 

Matthew  viii 

.    12          108 

I  Chronicles  xvii.   12  f. 

22 

X.  28 
32  f. 

xi.  27 

109,   130 

34 
32,  49.  62 

Psalm  Ixviii.  5 

20 

28 

33.51 

Ixxxix.  3-5 

22 

xii.  28 

74,  79 

ciii.  13 

20 

31  f- 

79,  105 

Jeremiah  xxxi. 

9 

19 

34 
45 

103 

107 

Hosea  xi.  i 

19 

xiii. 

128 

Malachi  ii.  10 

20 

38 
xiv.  33 

89,  103 
31 

Matthew  i.  23 

30 

XV.  6 

106 

iii.   II 

36 

xvi.  16  f. 

35,49 

17 

64 

33 

99 

iv.  I 

74 

xvii.  5 

13,46 

8 

86 

xviii.    10 

49 

V.  20 

106 

xix.  26 

41 

22 

109 

XX.   28 

125 

48 

135 

xxii.   13 

108 

vi.  9 

40, 

130 

15 

104 

L 

177 

178 


Index  of  Texts 


Matthew  xxii. 

29         15 

Mark  vii.      19 

146 

42-45 

15,53 

viii.  36 

93 

32 

41 

ix.  7 

36 

xxiii.  33 

104,  109 

X.  18 

163,  116 

xxiv.  14 

88 

27 

40 

21 

90 

45 

"3 

XXV.  30 

108 

xi.  18 

io8 

34      9C 

,99,  137 

xii.  29-31 

15,  71 

41,46 

no 

xiv.  36 

51 

xxvi.  28 

113 

62 

56 

63  f. 

56,58 

xxvii.  46 

61 

Luke  i.  1-3 

147 

xxviii.  18 

62 

32 

44 

19 

76,98 

35 

44,73 

20 

83,91 

ii.  14 

45 

52 

47 

Mark  i.  1 1 

31,45 

iii.  22 

43,  73 

ii.  10 

32 

29  f. 

79 

20 

113 

iv.  18  f. 

27,  74 

iii.  29 

105 

vi.  36 

135 

32 

60 

X.  16 

35 

34  f. 

136 

21 

51,  74 

iv,  I 

74 

22 

33,51 

41 

93 

xi.  13 

81 

vi.  14  f. 

125 

xii.  6  f. 

132 

41 

93 

XV.  7 

125 

Index  of  Texts 


179 


Luke  XV.  10 

125 

John 

iii.    I 

6    2 

5,44, 

11-32 

97 

68, 

95,  113 

xvi.  23 

108 

17 

96 

26 

109 

18 

44,  108 

xviii.  19 

40 

iv. 

10 

32 

xix.  10 

100,  no 

21  f. 

145 

xxi.  26 

88 

23 

50 

xxii.  24 

142 

24 

38,93 

42 

51,68 

34 

32,  74 

xxiii.  34 

III 

V. 

66 

46 

52 

17 

48,  94 

xxiv.  49 

82 

18 
19 

48 
61 

John  i.  I 

28, 

29>  59 

20 

50,  59,  96 

3 

87 

23  f- 

62 

10 

87,91 

25 

56 

94,  112 

12 

115,  121 

26 

61 

13 

123 

30 

59 

14 

28, 

29,43 

37 

36 

17 

25 

39 

14,  15 

18 

29i 

43,68 

40 

124 

ii.  16 

48 

vi 

•  32  f- 

34,  49,  92 

19 

113 

36 

107 

iii.     3 

119 

44 

34, 

107,  123 

5,7 

120 

46 

35 

II 

26 

SI 

35 

i8o 


Index  of  Texts 


John  vi. 

65 

35 

John 

xii.  3] 

91 

70 

105 

44-5 

D 

26 

vii.  12 

86,  91 

47 

86,96 

16 

59 

xii- 

-xvii. 

66,  75 

39 

f. 

81 

xiii. 

3 

62 

vii— X. 

66 

xiv. 

6 

36, 

55>  107 

viii.  16, 

19 

36 

7 

64 

23 

90,99 

8 

155 

27 

87 

9 

24»37>68 

39 

105 

1 1 

55 

42 

105 

15 

135 

44 

105 

16 

70,  82 

49 

49 

23 

37> 

ii7>  133 

55 

50 

26 

75 

76,  143 

ix.  39 

86 

28 

64,89 

58 

29 

XV. 

I-IO 

133 

X.  15 

50 

19 

90 

16 

146 

26 

76 

30. 

33. 

34-36    57 

xvi. 

7 

82 

xi.    4 

50 

8 

84 

9 

89 

10 

50 

25 

92 

12  f. 

11^  144 

41 

51,60 

14 

138,  143 

xii.  21 

155 

28 

16,67 

27 

46 

32 

67 

28 

36,  69 

xvii. 

2 

67 

Index  of  Texts 


i8i 


John  xvii. 

3 

42 

Romans  viii.  9 

153 

5 

54,  89 

91 

14 

153 

6 

42 

15              123, 

153 

II 

54,  89, 

115 

26  f. 

84 

i8 

20  f. 

23 

85 

54 
55 

Galatians  i.  1 1  f. 
ii.  1 1-21 

141 

143 

24" 

25  f. 

xviii.  36 

16, 
90 

43 
115 
,99 

Ephesians  i.  3 
ii.  12 

152 
2 

XX.  17      69,  136, 
167 

164, 

Colossians  i.  17 

92 

22 

77 

I  Thessalonians  i.  i 

149 

28 

69 

3 

149 

Acts  i.  I 

144, 

145 

iii.  II 

149 

4 

143 

I  Timothy  i.  i 

150 

8 

82 

iv.  10 

153 

ii.  32  f. 
vii.  48 

145 

145 

11  Timothy  i.  10 

150 

X.  34 

xi.  14 

146 
146 

Titus  i.  3 

150 

xiv.  17 

153 

Hebrews  ii.  1 1 

136 

xvii.  27 

2 

xii.     9 

149 

28  f. 

152 

30 

152 

James  i.  27 

149 

1 82  Index  of  Texts 

James  iii.  9  149 

I  Peter  i.  3  89 

I  John  i.  I  28 


Revelation  i 

.  6 

150 

xi.  15 

99 

xiv.     I 

150 

The  Teaching  ofjesus  Concerning  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  the  Church 

BY 

Geerhardus  Vos,  Ph.D.^  D.D. 


PRESS  NOTICES. 

"  This  is  a  thorough  yet  compact  study  of  Christ's  teaching  on  the 
Kingdom  and  the  Church."      Auburn  Seminary  Re-vieiv. 

"A  vigorous  and  discriminating  discussion  of  a  vital  theme.  .  .  will  be 
read  with  help  and  satisfaction  by  a  large  audience."  The  Baptist  Ar- 
gus. 

"The  discussion  in  this  volume  is  of  a  great  question,  and  the  treat- 
ment is  attractive  and  luminous. ' '      The  Herald  and  Presbyter. 

"A  scholarly  volume.  .  .  .  the  whole  argument  is  well  expressed  and 
worthy  of  profound  consideration."      The  Examiner. 

"  Scholarly,  comprehensive  and  condensed.  The  discussion  shows 
wide  reading  of  the  literature  of  the  subject,  evangelical  conviction  and 
feeling,  and  great  skill  in  the  use  of  exegetical  power.  The  conclu- 
sions reached,  as  briefly  restated  in  the  closing  chapter,  will  commend 
themselves  to  earnest  and  moderate  men,  and  the  whole  discussion  will 
be  fascinating  and  suggestive  to  trained  students. "      N.   T.  Obser-ver. 

"Impartial,  reverent  and  very  careful.  .  .  .  Dr.  Vos'  standpoint  is  at 
once  modern  and  temperate.  His  study  will  be  of  value,  not  merely  to 
the  trained  student  but  to  the  general  reader  as  well. ' '      The  Church- 


"  The  author  has  given  a  clear,  strong,  convincing  argument  in  re- 
gard to  his  conception  of  the  nature  and  place  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
in  the  world.  It  is  a  book  that  is  profitable  for  reading,  study  and  re- 
reading."      The  Midland  Methodist. 

"A  scholarly  exposition  of  what  is  recognized  to  be  the  dominant 
theme  of  Christ's  teaching.  Especially  valuable  is  the  exegesis  of  Pe- 
ter's confession  and  Christ's  consequent  declarations."  The  Congrega- 
tionalist. 

I  imo.  Cloth  bound.  Pp.  vi,  203.  Price  75  cents. 


The  Teaching  ofjesus  Concerning  His 
Own  Mission 

BY 

Frank  Hugh  Foster^  Ph.D.,  D.D. 
PRESS  NOTICES. 

"  The  style  is  clear,  the  thought  elevated,  the  topics  treated  of  are, 
in  their  logical  deductions,  extremely  practical.  Students  of  the  Bible 
generally  will  find  this  a  very  useful  volume  to  peruse  and  possess." 
iV.    y.   Oiser-ver. 

"If  this  first  volume  of  this  series  is  a  fair  specimen  and  representative 
of  those  that  will  foUow,  the  series  will  not  lack  in  ability  or  interest. 
Dr.  Foster's  position  is  that  of  the  conservative  scholar  who  neverthe- 
less is  familiar  with  current  critical  investigations.  The  style  of  presen- 
tation is  clear  and  admirably  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  layman  and  the 
student."      TAe  Interior. 

"This  is  a  wonderfully  interesting,  suggestive  and  stimulating  little 
book."      TAe  Baptist  Teacher. 

"A  very  thoughtful  and  helpfiil  book.  .  .  will  be  found  instructive 
and  quickening."       The  Examiner. 

"The  book  is  the  work  of  a  thorough  scholar,  is  conservative  yet 
progressive,  and  gives  a  remarkably  wholesome  presentation  of  a  very 
important  subject."      The  Baptist  Argus. 

"  Scholarly  but  popular.  .  .  will  be  found  extremely  useful  to  all  who 
desire  a  concise  but  accurate  and  comprehensive  presentation  of  the  lead- 
ing teachings  of  Jesus  concerning  his  mission."  Baptist  Re-vieiv  and 
Expositor. 

"Clear  and  simple  enough  for  the  intelligent  layman,  but  not  unhelp- 
ful to  the  clergyman  who  wants  clearer  ideas  as  to  his  Lord's  atoning 
work."      The  Treasury. 

1 2mo.  Cloth  bound.  Pp.  viiiy  136.  Price  75  cents. 


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